Season 2 - Ep 20 - Tough Guys Don't Dance and Hologram Man - The After Movie Diner Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yes, that's right. It's the inevitably nonsensical, yet hopefully enjoyable
After Movie Diner. If you enjoy the show and have
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(00:35):
rate and review the show wherever podcasts are found and
rating and reviewing is possible. Even a one star review
provides useful insights on exactly the sort of petty minded
and wretched individual who negatively reviews free entertainment they do
not need to be consuming. So, without further dribbling, please

(00:56):
put down your lenon Meranus for the one the only
charm Cross.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, hello there, do you know how you are careering
towards middle age?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Do you know how to.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Tell that you sit down to edit your podcast with
a glass of neat whiskey in front of you.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
M who?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Anyway, I thought I would do a little introduction because
we are going to pick up the conversation. Halfway through.
Matt and I were talking all about holidays, Christmas, New Year,
things like that, Easter, things like that, and then we
got onto harvest. I don't know how but we did,

(01:42):
and I've sort of cut out all that other stuff
because it isn't really needed. But the harvest thing starts
up a running gag that I believe kind of goes
through most of the shows, so you have to listen
to it. So we pick up we've been talking about
holidays and then we go on to talk about harvest.
Don't ask why, just go with it, all right, thanks by,
we should also celebrate harvest. And I know that growing up,

(02:03):
the Protestant church has like a Harvest Sunday where they,
you know, everyone brings pumpkins and stuff that are donated
to the poor.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Every Easter.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Of that one poor guy at the back of the
hostel who's looking forward to all this food but hates pumpkin.
And now everything that everyone donates is just he's like,
he sees like boxes and cereal. Oh, someone's donated some cereal,
and then he looks at it it's like pumpkin spice,
shredded weed or something. It's like, ah, fucking fucking pumpkins.

(02:37):
He hates pumpkin. And so they think that they're doing
this wonderful thing donating to charity, and ninety percent of
people are fine with it. But there's that one pauper
who just goes hungry through anyway. I don't know what
so kind of Dickensian thing, but anyway, except everything has

(02:59):
pumpkin spice.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Right the like less Yeah, yeah, mister pumpkin man or yeah,
I can't think of a good name for the pumpkin guy,
the pumpkin popper guy, right, mister Pidley Pocket or something.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
He would he would be mister Pumpkinty Poppet or something else,
Ernest Pumpkinty Poppet right from old London town.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, somebody's gonna dig that up. Somebody's gonna go into
like dickens Old house. That's like somewhere in England that's like,
you know, restored. Somebody's gonna find mister Pidley Pockins or whatever.
That the manuscript, Oh my god, look at this buckets,
you know, and fifty years old.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's all about this pauper urchin really just a ne're
do well of the worst kind, who doesn't like pumpkin.
But every harvest, all the churches in the land go, well,
we'll have a harvest festival. But as the years went by,
everything became pumpkin spice so he couldn't avoid it, and
he went so poor and thin and ill and angry

(03:58):
by the time Christmas rolled around and people would donating
things like cake and you know, large buns and turkeys
and whatever. I don't know, what do you have oranges
with clothes in it and stuff? Whatever?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Christmas thing?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Did you ever do that? By the way at school
where you take the orange and you put clothes in
it and the string through it, and it's that's another
kind of like pagany Germanic. It's probably to ward off
evil badgers or hang that hangs out from z the doors.
So what offs the evil badgers who come every December
twenty six? Because you know it's the badgers and the

(04:35):
evil we put the oranges went to clothes and to
the cherry and so anyway, anyway, I have no idea
what I'm saying, Hey, Matt, how you doing.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
My wife and I during the Christmas period, we were
watching on Music Choice on the cable channel. They were
doing Classic Christmas and they would have all these facts
about Christmas and it was like ninety percent of it
was you know, Germanic people, nor people whatever. They did
this thing. So it's like, oh, we bring They bring
a tree in the house because it represented life, you know,

(05:07):
And now we bring a tree in the house and
the cats can.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Like the Nordic people always have like the parade of
the dwarfs, and it's just they get all the little
people in like Norway and Sweden and Iceland or whatever,
and they dress them up in like furs, animal furs
and like horns and stuff, and they parade them across
a glacier and every every year that all the little

(05:30):
people are like, what the fuck, why do we have
to do this? This is like abuse. I don't want
to be out here on a glacier and I hear
that these things are melting. I don't want to be
out here on a glacier while it's melting, dressed in
animal furs and a horn. Just because of some weird
Nordic rites where they think that little people are somehow
mystical creatures.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
I think that's probably what happens.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
All. Well, we do have a Swedish listener, Philip O'Nell. Yeah,
so let no, Philip, do you parade dwarfs so kind
of winter?

Speaker 4 (06:07):
If Fred Anderson listens to a lot of times, he's
on the exploding helicopter podcast. He's like an expert in
disaster movies, so every once in a while help you
on to do like towering at Fern or something like that.
He's from Sweden as well, so he might also be.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Oh nice, yeah, no, let us know.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
And look if we are in any way upsetting you
by by exclaiming that your you know, country folk would
parade dwarfs dressed as bizarre winter nymphs across across a glacier.
If that's making horrible xenophobic assumptions about your country, then

(06:45):
I apologize. But please, as an Englishman, feel free to
call us all a bag of cunts, because we are
and we're awful too. I just said, we cover everything
in pumpkin spice and neglect the one pauper that wants
nothing to do with pumpkins.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
I feel like if that wasn't ritual, that Bergman would
have had some kind of movie where there was like
Max one Seedau or another you know actor who's been
in the US with like I don't know bb I
can't think of her last name, but you know, like
they would be like having this like tense but like
understated tense conversation while the dwarves were walking by in

(07:24):
the fork, you know, kind of the background.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Oh yeah, you'd have max onon Sitou in close up
his huge domed you know, Nordic face just there in
the corner of the screen, and then in the background
are perfectly flat, glassier and you would just see the
like trumpet trungging kind of little dwarf folk with the
horns or whatever lit up holding like flaming torches or

(07:48):
whatever in the background, and Sidau would be talking about
the painful irrelevance of existence or something exactly.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
The bbe Anderson is that the actress I was thinking of.
Maybe I I looked at it, looked up online and
I see, like other actresses that I don't did. Was
just one of the things I've discovered with Bergmann is
it's not easy to look up his movies if you
don't know the Swedish, because they've all been remade right in,
you know, in English, by American you know, Like I
looked at the silence, and somebody else would remade the silence.

(08:18):
It's just, you know, I guess everyone's you know, and
I don't think you could ever pull off Bergman having
a you know, two p you know Max one seedaw
and you know somebody you know Ingrid doing whoever else
having an argument with dwarves walking around doing you know,
Christmas processional, the way that Bergmann could shoot that, you know. Yeah,
nobody should remake Bergmann stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah no, but we should make some kind of mad
Nordic movie about a Dwarf professional that get the one
year against hijacked by some villainous Dwarfs.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
So there's like an American or.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
I mean no, who would be villainous the Nordic people
I don't know, like I don't know Siberians or Russians
or something.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Nobody locks the germ Gems.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Everyone hates the Germans.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, we can fuck up, we can shit on the Germans,
all right, let's just shot on the Germans. I don't
think many people like the Russians either, but the Russians
might actually do. The Russians might actually be listening to.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Or releast my cell phone is.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
I have dreamal listeners as well, but it feels like.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
No, I mean listening through our cell phones, like the
Russians are listening through the Internet. They go, wait, someone,
I think someone just insulted on national hensage. They must
find these people and blow them up immediately.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
Our Scape accounts is just gonna get all these bots, yes,
like we're just gonna I.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Get that anyway, I get it. Who is spamming Scape
in twenty twenty four? Like? What people? It's like people
who still send out email junk mail? Why why are
you doing? Who are there that many people falling for?
You know, the Nigerian Prince scam or the you know,
porn hubs? Last your zip code please enter your and

(09:56):
again into or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
That you get.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
I look at some of this spam and I'm just like,
what year are we living in?

Speaker 3 (10:05):
But someone must be falling for this portion.

Speaker 4 (10:08):
The smart one that they do now is that you
get this this spam email that you know it may
or may not look great, but it says essentially like, hey,
you know, thanks for signing up for this five hundred
dollars a year thing. You're supposed to go what I
did sign up for a five hundred What kind of mistake?
What kind of craziness is this? And then you get
you just want to get it removed right away, because

(10:29):
I think there's a satisfaction in complaining to somebody and
getting something removed or reversed or something like that, and
they play on that satisfaction that people have. And so
what people do is they just call up and give
all their information to get this fake charge that doesn't
even exist removed by someone who's able to spoof the
email of like best Buy or somebody like that.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah. I don't fool for any of that shitact. The
only people I answer an email of people who I
know for a fact of people I know. Everything else
gets deleted. I have no time for that shit. I
probably got like, there's probably some distant relative who's like,
by the way, you're a multi millionaire, and they've been
emailing me, and I'm just like, no, lies delete And

(11:09):
I'm probably sat here at Pauper hating pumpkin spice. And
while you know, in the background, somewhere in my extended
family is some sort of cousin my dad didn't know
that he had, and I'm somehow the only one left
in the lineage to receive his millions.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
You flushed out the rest of the Dickens stuff, of
the long lost dick asault, you know. Yeah, mister Pidley Pockins,
he's like removing all these letters are coming in by
the post and he's like throwing them out. Here's mister
perky pockets that his rich uncle is often this like
mansion somewhere writing these letters like oh what my nephew,
you know, and.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
He keeps getting them and he's like bar humbug and
he's tearing them up. It's probably from the Pumpkin of
the Month club, and I don't want any part of
that pumpkin nonsense. He's like, I cursed the day that
they ever invented pumpkin spice. He shudders next to Starbucks
in the winter months, just being like why, why, Sorry,

(12:10):
We're going.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
All over the place.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
I don't know that anyone is following this, but I
have been recording the whole thing, so it will be.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
It will be in the episode. But it's funny.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
I feel like our opening ramble this time, I think
matches very well with the structure or lack thereof of
Tough Guys Don't Dance Yes, which is one of the
few movies that I at least has a flashback within
a flashback, if not a flashback within a flashback within

(12:40):
a flashback, because at a certain point, once you get
three flashbacks deep, I'm really, I'm really lost, you know,
but I feel like our opening preamble had three flashbacks teeth.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
So no, what's crazy about it is in the actual
book itself, right, the whole flashback thing. It's essentially a
paragraph where the main character just gets his dad up
to speed on everything that's happened so far on the book.
It's like, but it happens with this roughly the same
point as when we get back. It's like, like, I
don't like three quarters of the way through the book

(13:11):
and it's just like one paragraph. Oh, like you know,
I sat Duggie down and I got him up to
speed on what was happening. And for some reason Mayler
decided to make the whole movie that one paragraph of
when he's getting up to speed on everything. Yeah, it
was a it's a fascinating idea. This this movie is
a like for Norma Mayler to say, this is the
adaptation I want to direct of my book. Yeah, it's

(13:32):
just it's really fascinating.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
The fact that Norman Mayler was such a fan of
this and talk so highly of it is a delight
to me.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Is a delight to me because I I.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
We'll get into it in a minute, but tough guys
done dance, especially watching it last night, and that's that's
the second time I've seen it all the way through.
So the first time I saw it all the way
through was way back when in the cinema. Nighthawk Cinema
in Brooklyn used to do these and may still do

(14:08):
these Thursday nights that were what they called the do screenings,
and it was movies that had had a life on
forty second Street but had not had much life since.
So they used to find sort of when certain movie screen.
They would go back into the archives and go, Okay,
when did this movie screen, what year, what month, what

(14:29):
was its.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Opening weekend, etc. And that's how they would do the
do screening. So I was able to.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
See a pretty pretty scrappy and pink and screening of
this movie. So it was not a great print, but
I was able to see that a few years back.
We certainly within the last nine years, because I remember
seeing it with Kim, so probably within the last eight
years I had seen it or so, and it certainly

(15:00):
come in my awareness. And then I now have the
vinegar syndrome blu ray. So that's what I watched next
last night.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yeah, Oh, I didn't know there was a vinegar. So
does that have the Mailor commentary track? I had no
I did that existed?

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, so it has. It doesn't have the Mailer commentary track. Okay,
so it has the archival FEATURETT, which is Norman Mailer
in Provincetown, which is basically an extended interview with just him.
I thought it had a commentary, but I don't know.
It has an interview with his son, It has an

(15:36):
interview with wings Houser, it has an interview with a cinematographer.
I thought it had a commentary, but now I'm not
seeing one, so maybe it doesn't.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
Yeah, so that might be an earlier DVD because Mailer's
commentary is supposed to be a trip, like the stuff
that he said. So one other quick fact about him
being in Provincetown. I recently had to have a thing
on my back taking care of and I had to
go into urgent care to get it get a follow
up check up on it. The doctor there he saw
that I was reading Tough Guys Don't Dance, and he
was that. He asked about it, and it turned out

(16:08):
when he was younger in the seventies, when he was like, well,
maybe it was even the eighties. I don't know, but
when he was he would work in the summers in
Provincetown and he met Mayler. Well also, technically, I guess
I'm one one degree of separation away from Norma Maylor.
So yes, well I love that.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
I think that's fantastic, and by therefore, by extension, only
two straps away from wings Houser, which is the more
important of the two in my an Our Our movie
movie Loving but Yeah, so Tough Tough Guys Don't Dance
from nineteen eighty seven. It is a Cannon Films production

(16:45):
in association with zoed Trope Studios of one mister Francis
Ford Coppola, who basically, when I think Norman Mayla's producer
went to Zoetrope, and Cobblo was like, for Mailer, sure anything,
you know, yes, exactly, you know, because who doesn't want
to see like it's so fascinated because this movie is

(17:05):
based on a novel that he wrote on like he
wrote within two months, Like he bashed this novel off
in no time because he was contractually obligated to his
current or then publisher for one more novel and he'd
been spending their stipend that they've been given him or
his Pa diem or whatever for like months and months

(17:26):
and mounts and they'd be like, wait, what are you doing.
You got to give us a book. So he wrote
this book, and you know, it was this sort of
shaggy dog murder mystery with sort of spiritual elements and
ghost elements and other stuff like that. It's sort of
all over the place. And then this was the I

(17:47):
love so I'm a big fan, Matt. I'm with you
on this. I'm a big fan that this was the
movie he wanted to make. And I know that. I
know that a big part of that was that he
just wanted to film shit in Provincetown.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
I get that. So he had such a hard on
for this.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
For the tip of the finger of Massachusetts, as she
says in the movie, she says, Oh, do you know
the other filmic character who who has said Massachusetts in
the same way as she does?

Speaker 4 (18:19):
No, No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
In Silence of the Lambs, it's the doctor who fancies her,
the sleazy doctor. That actor is a judge on Boston
Legal and in Boston Legal, that actor and he may
even see it. In Silence the Lambs as well. He
may have pronounced it this way as well. But in
Boston Legal, that actor and you can picture him, he's

(18:42):
the guy. He always plays a villain, you know what
I mean, the slimy doctor and I can't think of
his name right now, but he's a judge on Boston
Legal and he's always like, how dare you defame the
fine state of Massachusetts?

Speaker 3 (18:56):
And the woman the.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Ex porn stuff in this who is flirting with O'Neill
at the bar in front of her cuckolded husband and
quite one of the most bizarre sequences in the whole film.
She she refers to Provincetown on the tip of the
finger of Massachusetts, which is just wonderful.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah. Yeah, in the book, it's interesting in the book
because I was gonna say about that that character, right,
the whole cuckholding and all of that stuff there, It's
just it's it's completely different. Like in the book, there's
more to it, there's more, you know, kind of And
again it's one of those things about this movie that
things that work in a novel sense where you can

(19:43):
expand on things and pull you know that in a
in a movie where you've just kind of kind of
put them out there, just make them happen. They're almost
like random, and they're just it's almost kind of thrown together,
and it kind of made it weird for me watching
the movie. I was like, Okay, I know what that
guy's backstory is, and I know why he's going through
all of this, and I get all of But when
you watch the movie, you don't read the book, you know,
because you're technically not supposed to have read the book.

(20:05):
When you see them, like they're not supposed to be
the same thing, right, You're like, why is this guy
putting up with this? Like why is he doing any
of this stuff? Like why is any of this stuff
happening here? Yeah, it's it's it's fascinating how he did that. Well.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, and what I think what I love about the well,
the thing that I haven't heard mentioned and I watched
a bunch of interviews and I watched some reviews and
stuff like that, the thing that I don't think gets
mentioned about tough guys don't dance, And it's uh filmic quality.
I know, everyone talks about the cinematography, and they talk

(20:37):
about the acting and the music and whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
We'll get onto all of that, but.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
You know, I was tempted while watching it last night,
and I'm not even kidding, especially the first act of
turning the color down on my TV. And the reason
why is that he has so written the screenplay like
a forties film noir, right, And what what people don't

(21:04):
I think people who think of film noir who don't
watch a lot of it, think of, you know, whether
it's Sunset Boulevard or Casablanca or you know, angels with
dirty faces or what I mean, I don't know, pick
your very fa double indemnity, you know, pick your face,
very famous, multi falcon, big sleet, black and white film

(21:27):
noir movie. Right. For every one of those, there are
a hundred B pictures. Film noir was a bee genre
most of the time, and a lot of those B
films were great areas for especially women directors to throw
their hat in the ring and do some incredible work.

(21:47):
I know, idol A Pino makes some incredible ones for
very little money, and and there are some other great
B pictures.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
But there were also the like shonky, cheesy, quotable but
messy B movie film no wires that are trying to
emulate the sort of rambling chanderresque nature of big sleep
and stuff, but doing it in a very kind of
slap dash fashion. But equally they have their own charm,

(22:15):
just like you know, Star Wars has its charms, and
then like very be Roger Corman, Star Wars knockoffs have
their charms. Right, there's different movie going experiences.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
And he writes this, and there's part of me that
has got to believe it's intentional because the way he
rattled off the novel was very much like, well, the
only thing I can do is a pulp detective story,
So let me write in a pulp detective style. It's
going to be new for me, and it's going to
be exciting, and I can just emulate a bunch of

(22:47):
people that I already have in my head kind of thing.
And I feel like whether he gave it a lot
of thought or whether he didn't. I feel like when
he came to write the screenplay for this, so when
he came to direct it, and kind of I think
give some direction to the actors. If you turned down
the color of this movie, or even if you stood

(23:08):
in another room and just listen to the dialogue and
didn't know what this movie was you would assume you
were about to walk in on like a black and white,
you know, nineteen thirties, nineteen forties, you know, a gangster
murder mystery b pick, like that's what you would think
you would walk into. And I think, if you can

(23:28):
dial into that a little bit, but also realize that
he's trying to make a ghost story, but also realize
that he's trying to make a comedy. Like when you
put those three things together and you go, he's trying
to make a comedy, which he's already admitted it has
a sense of humor, it's meant to He's trying to

(23:49):
make a ghost pair, a sort of eerie get under
your skin, is.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
It in your head? Or is it not in your head?
Kind of ghost story?

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, And he has written it like a nineteen forties
poulp film noir movie, right, much in the same way
that he wrote the book. When you think of it
like that, when you dial into it like that, he
succeeds on every level, Like he succeeds on every level
doing that. He really does. And I was, you know,

(24:18):
I know, people make a claim against this movie. It's
not that easy to follow, And no, it's not that
easy to follow. But if you follow it, and you
can follow it, it does you can add everything up
and you can follow it, and it certainly has film logic,
if not actual logic, it makes a lot more fucking
sense than something like The Bisley, even if it does

(24:43):
throw in a lot of like wacko side characters into
the mix just for fun or to make statements. So
I have to say, having watched this again last night,
I know there is a lot of derision out there
for this movie, and I also know it's one of
those movies that people frustratingly watched, but I fucking enjoyed it.
I thought it was hilarious, but I also fucking enjoyed

(25:04):
it for what I think it was trying to be.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean, the thing about the novel is the
best description of the novel I saw when I was
reading the reviews on the on the cover, somebody said,
it's like if Julia Child made a hamburger, right, like
hamburgers or hamburgers, But if Julia Child made a hamburger,
it would be you know, it'd still be a hamburger,
but it would be a different kind of hamburger. And
that's kind of what this book is it's like if

(25:28):
you know, Norma Mayler making a Hamburger, making a pulp novel,
you know, and this movie is not that that kind
of thing. Like, this movie is not like Norma Mahler
making his own like kind of schlock movie of the
week kind of thing, because the actor, some of the
actors kind of make it feel like that, like John
Bedford Lloyd who is now is having his birthday today actually,
or Debora Stipe, like they kind of feel like like

(25:49):
Matt Locke, you know, movie of the Week kind of actors,
you know. And then you've got Ryan O'Neil, who's just
Ryan O'Neil, who's he's about fifteen years older than the
character was supposed to be in the book. But it
was just like, oh, we got Ryan o'e let's do that.
I mean a lot of things that it feels like
that a lot of changes were made because it was like,
we can get somebody like Isabella Rossellini in the book,
it's supposed to be an Italian American person, not an

(26:09):
actual Italian, but it's like, oh, we got Isabella Rossolini
and her obviously her character has a bigger part in
the book than she does in the movie. But it's
just like Isabella Rossolina, let's do that right.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, because the other thing, so, first of all, he's
already admitted that in the interview on the on the
Blu Ray he talks about how it was written as
an Italian American, and Italian American have certain like hudspar
re gumption or you know, no nonsense bs kind of
way of doing stuff. Well, certainly the way Italian Americans

(26:40):
are written in popular fiction, that's how they're written. Whereas
the Italians, and certainly someone like Isabella Rossellini brings her
own kind of more sort.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Of glacial haunting, you know, qualities.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Uh. And what he really liked about the version of
the woman in the movie played by Isabella was that
she showed you, in her acting, emotion and everything else,
just how much Ryan O'Neill's character Tim Madden has just
devastated her and her error and destroyed her, but also

(27:18):
shows you why she can't let that relationship go. So
but yes, but to to your point, the the other
two elements that I would pour on the the you know,
pulp film noir and the ghost story and the comedy
that he's trying to make is that. And this is

(27:39):
invariably where the criticisms of the movie come from.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Is that when he doesn't quite.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Nail the film noir patter and dialogue it, it does
slide very quickly into soap opera territory. It just slides
very quickly into sort of and it does doesn't help
that while something like someone like David Lynch would sort
of perfect this a few years later in Twin Peaks,

(28:09):
this sort of eerie soap opera meets detective story meets
you know, misty weird oddball up in the mountains kind
of TV show and soap opera and detective show. Whereas
David Lynch would sort of somewhat perfect it. The problem
with Tough Guys Don't Dance is because they've gone for

(28:32):
this very interesting, minimalist pastel cinematography where everything is sort
of just it's like dull pastel. The whole movie is
sort of dull pinks and dull blues and dull yellows
and dull greens. It's all sort of it has a
little bit of a haze over it, but more in
a glossy sense and less in a you never quite

(28:53):
feel the bitter cold like you would if if the
cinematography was leaning into the blue nature of like a
rocky outcrop in New England in the winter, it would
be different. Here, it's more it more feels like a
Miami version of Provincetown in the sense that he sort

(29:16):
of wanders around in jean jackets and there's a lot
of pastel stuff and he drives like a jeep. It
sort of feels like he wants it to be a
summer movie, but he's filmed it in the teps of winter,
you know.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
So it's sort of this weird thing.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
And that's why, especially with people like Debra Stype and
John Benford Lloyd, but even Ryan O'Neil in his moments,
it can slide into soap opera territory pretty quick because
soap opera uses cliche dialogue in the same way that
film noir does. Now, when you do it the film noir, waey,

(29:54):
it's like cool and badass and you're like, oh my god,
I wish everyone talked like that all the time. But
then other times, when you say it more in a
matter of fact way or in a in a way
where the set was just not conducive to a good
acting performance, or whatever it is. It just slides right
back into the kind of cliche of soap opera.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
Right, Yeah, no, no, no, that's a great point. I mean,
you know the Pastel's piece too, you know, thinking about
Mailer and where he might have been drawing inspiration from.
Miami Vice was big at that time, and that was
you know, Pastel film noir that Michael Mann was doing,
and and so that might have been another inspiration for
him that he was. I mean, he you know, he
was probably that kind of older guy that was like

(30:35):
into whatever the kids were into. He probably had a
member of the Only Jacket and stuff like that at
that time, so he was probably trying to draw from
that too. But I mean, and the other thing I
kind of feel that I kind of like about this,
and I was talking about it with you earlier, that
it's it. There's this weird time for Cannon where they
were trying to be respectable, I guess, or they wanted
to have both blockbusters and you know, art house respect Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
So this is the fifth pot that you add to
the other four parts. The fifth part is it's a
canon movie exactly.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
Yeah. Well, because you know they'd had John Cassavetti's make
a movie, and it was one of those deals where
they kept trying to get him to make the movie
shorter and he kept making it longer. Then they get
Go Dard, which I talked with you about where he
was Godard was gooda big king lear, which if I
don't if you've ever seen his king lear, it's so
off the wall and ridiculous. But Mayler's in it for
a little bit. And the reason why he's le in
it for a little bit, and I was telling you

(31:24):
this you know before, is that he wanted Mayler to
do a love scene with Mayler's daughter, and Mayler of
course absolutely refused and said, no, I'm not going to
do that. So so that's the one Mully Ringwald is
in exactly. That's the one.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yes, so weird, but it's again that kind of highlights something.
The reason why I say, oh, it's a cannon picture.
And you were reminding me earlier when you were talking
about like, well we got Isabella Russellini, Well we got
you know, Ryan O'Neill. What we got these people is uh,
you know, we got Lawrence Tourney. What can we do
with it? I kind of thing is the whether Canon

(31:57):
was making Action Picks or whether they were making you know,
Got Our films or Zephyrrelli movies or whatever it was.
There was always or even when Mona can Go was
making his Oat movies, it didn't matter necessarily who. They
never picked actors because who they were best for or

(32:19):
what role they were best for. They just went, oh,
who do we have available? And they just oh, we've
got three names and we we we put them in
the movie. And it's fun seeing that they were, well,
who do we have, Oh, Molly Ringwold needs to work?

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Well?

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Put her in the Garda.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
King Lea What what is that?

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Why would that? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, but
you know they were doing shit like this, and that
kind of explains.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Although Ryan O'Neill and.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
More Norman Mayler had had known each other socially on enough,
but anyway, you know, it's certainly cast in that in
that way, and all the better for it, I mean,
all of.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Yeah, it just just adds another level to this which
is just so much fun. That were like like you said,
I mean, and then of course, like you talk about
like the different levels, I mean, we get to wings Hauser,
I mean, he is not the book character. Like so
the character that he's supposed to play in the book,
I wouldn't have imagined Wings Tuser, but this adaptation that
Normal Mayler's doing, wings Hauser is perfect for this role.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Oh yeah. And what's hilarious is that Norman Mayler and
wings Houser clashed initially because.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Wings was was sort of.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Wings ing it up a little bit, not that he
isn't in the final movie either, but he was very
Norman Mayler said his problem was that Wings kept gesticulating
and like moving his hands as he was talking. And
what's weird about that is I don't think of Wings
as sort of a particularly like hand actor at all,
but apparently that's what Norman Mayler said happened in wings

(33:56):
Houser's interview. He just said that Norman Mayler like kept
giving him and it was driving him nuts, and it
basically came to a head and.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
They had a big fight, and then they agreed to.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Agree to go back to work and everything was fine,
and Wings was giving such a great performance that Norman
Bayl has done nothing but like compliment him ever since.
So they kind of made up and everything's great. But
we I mean, first of all, you know, definitely definitely
watch Tough Guys Don't Dance. So if you don't want

(34:29):
to hear any spoilers or anything like that, like turn
off now, I guess, or fast forward to Hologram Man,
which would be coming up later.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
But the so it's definitely one worth to what.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Definitely I would I would definitely watch it, track it down,
watch it. I think it's if it's finning a syndrome,
it's probably streaming online somewhere, and it's it's just so
peculiar because it does. The reason why I keep mentioning
like these types, whether it's film noir with it's soap opera,
whether it's comedy, whether it's a ghost story, whether it's

(35:03):
a canon movie, is because it is all of those things.
You can't say that it's not one of those things.
It is. It contains it's one of these weird movies
that it contains multitudes. It really does contain multitudes because
it's not And there's a great quote by Wings Housen
where he says something like, no, it's not a normal movie.

(35:25):
We don't always need to have a normal movie. And
I'm like, you're right, Wings, we don't always need to
have a normal movie.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
But I think because.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Mailer was such a fan of film and was so
enjoying the role of director. You know, he has nothing
but you know, positive things to say about the job
of directing. He has nothing but positive things to say
about his cinematographer. He has nothing positive to say. Sorry,
I have nothing but positive things to say about his cast.
Like he was very happy making this movie, he said,

(35:58):
despite the odd arguments with Wings, hows are about his
giant hands? Uh? He said, He's like, I'm gonna I'm
gonna tell Wings to sit on his fucking hands if
he keeps you know, he's waving them fucking meat hooks
about uh Mayle like just grub being province out.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's too fucking cold for the ship. Wings, sit on
your hands.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
But here's nothing that happy things to say say about
making the movie. And but all and all of it
I think comes through. So I think he is deliberately
playing with cinema a little bit. But he also knows
because it's odd, right, because he's clever enough and a
good enough writer to know how to play with the

(36:43):
rules of cinema. But he's norvious enough in making movies
that it might just be unintentional. It's it's one of
those things and all that We've said this so many times,
but all the best movies that we love, these movies
that talk to us the whether it's The Wings House
of the Pem Entertainment, you know, the Donald Pleasants, whatever

(37:04):
it is, or most of them are plucky little indies
or plucky little bee movies that.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Go just far enough out of.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
The norm that they hold their place in, you know,
a pantheon of fun movies to have in your back
pocket on a rainy day kind of thing. And I
think you and I sort of feel very similar about
these kind of films and have a similar passion about
these kind of films. And you know, and that's this
one walks that line, like so many of them do between.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Do they know that they're sort of sort.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Of deconstructing cinema and then putting it back in like
a sort of shitty, messy way on purpose or are
they just not good enough yet that they know the cliches,
like they know the beats one is meant to have
in a movie, and they know the kind of tropes

(38:01):
that they want to use, but they're just not expert
enough to use them fluidly, so the movie still comes
off a little left of center, and you can't tell.
You can't tell whether they're in on the joke but
y'or not. You know.

Speaker 4 (38:14):
Well, the other thing is that he has three other
movies he directed, and they're all Criterion films, so right
and cherry put the first three they came out like
a but they were.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Sort of experimental films, right.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
Right, exactly, Yeah, And so I think he must have
had this sense that, like seventeen years later, the muscle
memory was all still learn. It's like I made a
movie before I can make a movie again. And but
like you said, yeah, these aren't these like sort of
experimental Warholi and things. It's it's like, but it has
a sense of that. But also because like when you
read about you know, as we get into the film
and some of the things that the choices that were made,

(38:45):
it's almost like almostly kind of like a late Beatles
John Lennon just being like, no, let's just keep that
in and and and all the beats, you know, like
there's so many there's probably plenty of Beatles songs where
Lennon said, let's just keep that in the sound horrible.
But there's so many that are classics that you're just like,
you know, like Strawberry Fields Forever something like that, where
you're just like, oh, he decided, he just randomly decided

(39:06):
to keep something in and it's a masterpiece, and I wonder.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Where to put it.

Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah, yeah, And I think Baylor's thought he had a
lot of Strawberry Fields Forever, when maybe it's sort of
other songs off of Beetles albums that nobody really listens
to unless you're like huge Beatles fans.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Right, yeah, No, I mean, look, it never quite gets
as bad as Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but it occasionally it
sort of veers between, oh, this is a great thing.
Sometimes tough Guys don't dance is full on Penny Lane
and the fucking whistle trumpet is playing away and you're
soaring away and you're on the top of that fire

(39:39):
engine that he's singing about, and you're going through Liverpool
and everything's glorious. And then other times it's Maxwell's silver
Hammer and you're like, Paul, what the fuck dude, you
know what I mean? Sometimes it's sometimes it's maybe I'm amazed,
and sometimes it's temporary secretary, you know, what I'm saying.
And both things can exist because we know in MCA

(40:00):
that both things exist, So both things can exist for
Meyler too, And I don't mind that though I'd like,
I love the cacophony of madness that that produce.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
Right well. And I think the other thing, because it's
Mailer thinking about like late Beatles, late air Beetles. I mean,
I guess the Beatles had each other to check each other,
to be like, no, we shouldn't do this, we should
do this.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
They Maxwell's silver right, they did exactly.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
But it's like like if Paul McCartney went to a
studio to make up an album right now, no one
would tell Paul McCartney, you shouldn't do such, you know whatever,
certain things. And I think that's Mailer in the late eighties.
Nobody who's gonna tell Mayler don't do something? And I mean,
I guess unless it's wings Houser saying don't send me
post it notes telling me. But but but for the
most part, people are could be like, hey, that's how
you want to do it, mister Mayler. Let's let's do

(40:46):
it right and and and in some cases that's why
you get such something. So crazy here is because he's Yeah,
nobody's you know, like the canon people. They thought they
were going to get this sort of like this indie
cinematic masterpiece. That's what they thought they were getting.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
And also they used to force cinemas to take both picks,
so if they knew they had a bronze and movie
coming out that everyone wanted, right because everyone was cut,
you know, Gaga for Bronson back in the eighties. Why
we're not now, I have no idea, but we should
be because it's he left a legacy. Check out The
Stone Killer, one of the best Michael Winner movies ever.

(41:24):
Fucking Bronson is amazing that anyway, such a great seventies
funk soundtrack as well.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
But I love that.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
I just recently discovered that movie with my friend Jay
and it blew me away. I love it. What was
it about? What how did they get onto? Oh?

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, sometimes they would, They would be selling.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
The distributors of the cinema on well, in order to
get the Bronson pick, you have to take Cassavetti's I'm
Fucking with Gola and Glovis movie, or you have to
take Zephyrrelli's Othello, or you have to take you know whatever,
he would package them in that way, you know, I
mean Roger Corman used to do the same when he

(42:04):
would buy like, you know, Italian and Spanish language movies,
redubbed them from American audiences, and then when he would
send them out to the drive ins, he would package
you know, an alien picture, an action picture, and an
art house picture, and he would just be like, you
have to take all three. And that's how he would
get like weird you know, Swedish or Danish or German

(42:30):
or whatever kind of movies out into the drive ins,
and why they were able to get American distribution and
very often the only.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Life they had.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
And so, you know, Golam and Globus, it's so interesting
when you look at like the Corman school or their
PM Entertainment that would come after Canon and even New
Image that branched specifically off Canon and would go on
to make like the Expendables and things these everyone knew
how to do it better than Golam and Globus, but

(43:00):
it meaning they knew how to stick to budgets, they
knew where to put the.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Money, they knew who to hire and who not to hire.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
They knew that you could get as a stable of
stars without having to buy them. You could actually grow
them and build them yourself. And they knew all this
about about making movies. Golam and Globis knew how to
do it. If everyone in the boardroom had to stick
and dynamite under under their seats, that's how Golam and

(43:29):
Globist knew how to do it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
They knew how to.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
They knew all of the things they were like put
the money on the screen, not you know, not in
the trailer or at the craft service table, or you know,
giving clothes to women or any you know, anything that
required you know, in zero temperatures. They they knew to
not to like waste money on things like you know,
basic comforts and human rights. What they did know how

(43:56):
to do, though, was to put lots of money into
either stars, which would be ultimately their downfall was the
ridiculous amounts of money they paid Stallone to be in
Over the Top. But and Christopher even Superman four and
various other things. Not that I'm blaming Reef, I mean

(44:18):
we've deserved them, you know what I mean, because he
was stuck in that role sadly. But they weren't very frugal,
and they didn't know. They kept thinking that every movie
was going to be this enormous hit instead of analyzing
why the last fifty weren't exactly exactly.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
And I mean Superman four is a great one because
it comes up the same year as this, Right, they
both come out in eighty seven, but I believe the
Kick Lear movie also came out in eighty seven, the
Goat art So it's like they had like these big
blockbusters and these art house like you know, these movies,
and they, like you said, like each year, you know,
I mean, they probably had a bunch of eighteen eighty sevens. Really,

(44:58):
when we think about it, it's like kind of this
interesting sleigh here of you know, of what they were
releasing at that time. But because that was the thing,
right that nineteen eighty seven was trying to pay off
all the debts from eighty six and eighty five and
eighty four, and you know, had they just kind of
stuck with the you know that that that what they
talked about in the documentary where when the scripts come in,
one piles for truck Norris, one pile is for uh

(45:18):
for for John's brother. Yeah, if it stuck with that approach,
they probably would have lasted well, you know, because that's
kind of what Guy's like, like PM and a new
image too is like later they just go, okay, we're
not going to try to get Norman Mayler and no great.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
But I think that I think, you know. I I
watched I watched The Electric Boogaloo The Wild Untold Story
of Cannon films earlier, and I also watched the first
half of The Go Go Boys, which I haven't seen
that actually that has has Monocha Goloman and Goran globis
on on the actual on the actual documentary, along with

(45:55):
clips of Jehan Clau van Dam and stuff. So if
you have the both, you kind of get cover and look.
The Go Go Boys is certainly more complimentary or at
least realistic, whereas I find Electric Boogaloo unnecessarily harsh. I
feel like it, while it does have the occasional moment

(46:17):
of celebrating U Cannon and what they were able to do,
I think a lot of the time it's that fucking
twat in the hat with the scarf, the portly guy
who's just like a sound designer or something. And I'm
not disparaging sound designers. But like there's this one twasak
wearing this like he's got like he's got a big gut,

(46:39):
like I mean, I look, I've got a gut. We've
all got to gout. It's fine, But he sits like
back here with his gut out like this in a
big black long sleeve fucking sweatshirt like he's doing improv
at a black box theater in Chicago in nineteen seventy eight.
And then he's got a fucking wispy, pointless basically like

(47:01):
a woman's pashmeena type scaff And look, any gender can
wear a scarf.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
I'm not shit. This is not a gender thing.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
This is this cunt who was being interviewed for fucking
electric Boogaloo, who only has negative shit to say. You're
a sound designer, designed the sound and fuck off, but
he only has negative shit to say about these movies
that we hold here and we love. He only has
time to shit on them. And there he is wearing
a fucking little straw trilby and a wispy fucking thing

(47:29):
and then a black long sleeve I'm a theater kid
of the seventies, fucking and I'm just like, whoever this
bastard is, get him off by screen. Yeah, So I don't,
I don't. I don't like it.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
And then they have that little.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Toad faced gentleman from MGM who's just like every movie
they gave us with shit, and I'm like, but this
isn't that's not true. MGM had a long relationship with
Cannon and released were perfectly happy with a lot of
the movies they released, but he acted like every movie
they released was terrible. They also acted like every movie
was a flop apart from Breaking, and I'm like, no, no,

(48:06):
it wasn't. All of the Deathwich sequels made money. All
of the both Breaking movies made money, all of the
American Ninja movies made money.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
All of Chuck's movies made money.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
So this this thing, I understand they want to tell
the story of the downfall as quickly as possible, But
I'm genuinely surprised by that documentary because I loved Mark
Hartley's first two documentaries. I thought they were absolutely invaluable
and indispensable, and I think he really dropped the ball
on the Cannon one. And look that might have been
because he couldn't look like he didn't get Stallone, he

(48:38):
didn't get Van Dam, he didn't get some of the
bigger names who could have maybe been more reasonable about Cannon,
because in taking it back to tough goes they've done,
it's like, it's not just the end result that I
enjoy for a myriad of reasons. I love the fucking
just grumpy old man spirit that went into it.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
And look, I get it.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
They they you could cite them for abuse, maybe not
sexual abuse, but certainly like physical or mental or emotional
abuse compared to today's workplace. Right. And I'm sure Norman
Mayler on the best day was a grumpy son of
a bitch to be around. I totally understand. But there's
something about the you know, artists before the art thing

(49:23):
where I'm just like, I kind of want grumpy old
fucking dudes making my movies sometimes, not all the time,
but sometimes because.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
There is such spirit of spirit to the way he
wrote the book.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
And you might be like, well, yeah, he just wrote
it for hire because he owed them a thing, right,
But he did something within a and I find this
making my albums that I sometimes have to rush to
put out by a deadline. You know, he wrote something
to a deadline and yes, to kind of get out
of a contract or whatever. But something happened by going, well,

(50:01):
I like pulp novels, and I like Provincetown, and I
like you know, wigi boards and ghosts and things or
whatever it is. I'm just gonna throw everything I like
in a movie because in a book, because I don't
want to have to research it or you know, set
it in historical context or whatever. So I'm just going
to write about what I know, and I'm going to
bang it out in two months and then sort of

(50:23):
do the same thing with the script, because it's not
like he was able to sit around for eight months
and polish the damn thing. So you know, it was
a cannon picture. It's made, you know, fast and ready.
And yes, okay, they I think they were in Province
Town for like sixty days, which seems incredibly long to
film a movie where mainly it's just people standing around
and talking.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
But okay, apparently it took sixty days.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
But but you know, it's all filmed around his house.
It's all filmed around like local businesses that were perfectly
happy to sort of give up with their time and whatever,
especially Ryan O'Neil came into the bar and drank later
with them, So you know, it's made scrappily, It's it's
made with the Cannon Panasha being like, well, let's throw

(51:08):
Ryan O'Neil, Isabella Russellini and Wing's house and Lawrence Tierney
and pen Gillette into a giant blender of Norman.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Mailer's making and see what shits out.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
At the end. And I think when you get a
bunch of weird, scrappy, grumpy, probably not definitely not politically correct,
but definitely not necessarily even fully socially sane people, and
you just kind of go, Okay, you've got sixty days.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
To make this thing.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Listen, if you end up making tough guys, don't dance,
you're winning it life. That's that's how I feel.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
No, I agree completely. I mean I think the other
thing is that again, your normal Mailer brings this like
this cachet with him that like everybody which is expecting
a masterpiece. And you know, one of the things is
like when when the movie started getting bad, you know,
you know, reception, he made it sound like he was
creating a parody the whole time, which freaked Cannon out.

(52:09):
They didn't know what to do with that because they
were like, we thought they were packaging this, like you said,
they were packaging it as this is the masterpiece. This
is like the the the indie art house movie that's
going with Superman, and they thought they had like two
big winners that they were packaging and then Superman fordends
up being a dune and this, you know, and you know,
to your point too about the documentary, this is the
kind of this would have been the perfect movie to

(52:31):
discuss in the documentary because you know, to your point
about it kind of being slanting more negative. I mean,
you know, they interviewed Albert Pion, who did not have
a good relationship with Canon Dolph Lundgren. The only movie
he made with them was Mastered the Universe, and you know,
pretty much all Dolph says in the interview or you know,
for his interviews, but something it was bad from the
moment I got all the set, you know, and it's
like that's that's what you get there. So this is

(52:52):
but this is like the kind of movie that I
think is the probably the most fascinating kind of movie,
and it's completely absent from the film. I mean, they
talk about King lear a little bit. They talk about
the Cassavetti's film a little bit, not much, but I
would have been really curious to know more about how
that kind of thing work because I almost think too
that because go and glowist there from Israel and it

(53:13):
seems like a lot of things got lost in translation.
That's how we end up with like lemon popsicle or
you know what was the last American Virgin?

Speaker 3 (53:19):
The American version of it of.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
Lemon popsicle, and it doesn't really like, well, the.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Problem with that is they made it like shot for
shot and there was just some things culturally that And
I'm surprised none of the actors in the movie, all
of who were American actors, didn't turn around and go,
we don't call it this in high school, or we
don't right bring that on. Oh there's the oranges again.
He brings oranges in a Christmas tree to her when
she's in the hospital, And I told you the oranges

(53:46):
come in somewhere, dude, Like there's an orange thing to
do with Christmas. There's like an orange goblin or something.
Probably that's probably what the dwarfs are trying to ward
off in Sweden, is that if you parade the Dwarfs,
it warms off the art goblin who's gonna come stand
clothes in your asshole or something well, Crampus Sony or

(54:07):
something exactly. Well.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
No, but I wonder if something got lost in translation too,
because you like when I used to teach English is
the second language. I remember one of my students when
time was talking about what she did as a child,
and she said, I used to go outside and play
with myself. And I said, no, I used to go
outside and play by yourself, is what She's like, Well,
didn't I just say that. I was like, no, I'm
not going to tell you what the first thing was
because she's from Saudi Arabia, so we were gonna a conversation,

(54:32):
so I had to explain to her. But it's almost
like like, you know, Gold and Gloak, Nora Mayler said
to gold and Close, yeah, I'm just gonna play with
myself here, and they thought, oh, he's gonna play by himself,
and realized like, no, he's playing with himself.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
But again, there's there's a part of me that and look,
this is with hindsight, right, I have no skin in
the game whether this movie is popular or not. But uh,
there's there's a part of me with hindsight because you
have this incredibly mad moment in pop culture history where

(55:08):
you could get two gentlemen from Israel come over to
America and just be like, now we make American movies,
and everyone's just like, all right, sure, what do you want?
Do you know? Like you know that because you could
finally have a situation where that would happen, and they
played enough cinema and distribution company monopoly that they were

(55:29):
able to buy like big buildings and take over the
cam Film Festival and do various mad publicity stunts. There's
I don't know, there's just there's something you know, Evil
Canevil or the guy who you know tight wrote walks
between the World Trade Center buildings. There's just something glorious

(55:51):
about two mad men flaming out in quite such a
spectacular way. And I think that, you know, when we
look at tough Guys don't dance, I think it's so
easy to disparage a movie like this, or to cry
a movie like this, or even ignore a movie like this.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
And yet, for my way.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Of thinking, these interesting experiments, because that's what it is.
It's an experiment. Entirely the kind of movies there aren't
enough of and when you find one of them. I
don't know about you, but it's like, you know, it's
lovely to go to stalkling or deep sea diving and
see all the beautiful fishes, but it's when you, you know,

(56:33):
go into under the rocks in the middle of the
ocean and come across some bizarre fucking fish you've never seen,
with the glow up eyes that come out of the
top of the head and it's shooting lightning out of
its button. It's got seemingly fifteen nipples and seventeen fins.
You suddenly go, ah, that's the like, that's the one
I'm gonna remember and tell people about. But I'm not

(56:56):
going to catch it. I'm going to keep that one free,
you know what I mean. And it's it's there's something
about tough guys, don't done that. I feel that way
about it.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
Yeah, No, I agree completely. And I also one of
the things I love about the fact that it's from
nineteen eighty seven and not today. I think if this
movie was made today, it would have flamed out in
the theater just like it did in nineteen eighty seven.
But then it would have gotten this like second life
on like Netflix or something, where like younger people would
have watched it ironically and enjoyed it in it's kind
of separate way. And I love that this movie doesn't

(57:28):
have either of those things, right, right, It's not that
kind of thing. And so yeah, I, like you said,
it's one of those finds, one of those cinematic finds
that you're just like, I don't know that this is
what cinema was meant for, like what the original, but
the fact that we have it is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Yeah, And you don't get something like that without a
canon all without you know, with or without a Roger Coleman,
or without a child's band or without a you know,
Fred Owen Ray. I mean, I don't know, name your
b movie, ey Gone of choice, you know, call Lloyd
Lloyd Kaufman at Tromo like whoever it is. These you know,

(58:05):
these people when you look at when you watch something
like Electric Boogaloo and you suddenly start as they're showing
the movies, you go, oh, I rented that. Ah, that
movie meant a toun to me. Oh my god, I
love that movie. Wait, Cannon made that movie Oh my god,
I need to see that movie. Like as you're watching

(58:27):
the documentary. Whenever I see clips from the films, I
am never thinking I don't want to watch that.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
That looks like a piece of shit.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
I literally went to Amazon Prime because Amazon now owns MGM.
A lot of the Canon movies have ended up on
Amazon Prime. Some you still need an MGM Plus subscription for,
but that'll go away soon because who's gonna maintain that anymore.
They'll just incorporate it into Prime. But a lot of
the Canon movies now are on Amazon Prime. And I

(58:58):
literally as I was watching Electric Boogaloo again today and
I've seen it before, but I started going, oh, I
need to see Oh that's on Prime. Great, add that
to my list. Add that to my list. There was
no point even something like The Apple or something, you know,
which is so far swinging to miss it's not even funny,
but you go. You know what they thought, how do

(59:20):
we launch Cannon? Oh, I know, We'll make an insane
Tommy meets a Phantom of the Paradise meets Fucking the
Bible stories told by two non native English speakers in
the form of sort of a Xanadu style musical. I mean,
it's just such a wild, insane swing that if you're

(59:42):
not applauding it, then I'm sorry you've misunderstood life. Like
you know what I mean. Because if every single movie
that came out the gate was fucking I don't know,
pick your main popular fugging Like, if every movie that
came out was fucking die Hard or whatever, after about
ten of those movies, I don't mean that plot, but

(01:00:05):
that quality of movie, after about ten, fifteen, twenty of them,
you go all right, I'd like to see something a
little scrappy or a little messy, or a little weird
or a little like, wait, what just happened? Like you,
I don't know about everyone else, but I think that's
why you get these in Hollywood's history, as you sort

(01:00:25):
of go through the sort of genre cycles that Hollywood
has gone on that sometimes last five years and sometimes
last thirty years. It's why they rise and fall so quickly,
is because at a certain point, I love chocolate, There's
only so much chocolate you can eat, and it just

(01:00:45):
doesn't you know, at a certain point, it's actually the
absence of chocolate that makes the chocolate taste good. If
that makes any sense at all. I'm not sure if
I bullsed up that metaphor, but you know what I'm saying.
But let's get into the nitty gritty of Tough Guys
Don't Dance, and let's see between Matt and I. Listen,
we have, we have literary and creative brains. Let's see

(01:01:07):
if we can break down exactly what happened in Tough
Guys Don't Dance. Matt, did you have anything more to
say generally about the film before we break it down
for people?

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
No? No, I don't think so, no breakdown.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Ready for the breakdown, and then you need one of
those the breakdown, you know what I mean, one of
those like interstitial station breaks the breakdown. So the movie
centers around Ryan O'Neil's character, Tim Madden, and he is

(01:01:44):
a schlubby bomb of a writer who hasn't written anything
in years, but who gets insanely lucky with any woman
who so much is breezes past and coming. Coming from
a writer who had had six wives in his life
and and describes women as fluozies in one of the interviews,

(01:02:05):
I can only imagine that this is how Mahler himself
imagined his Lithario ways. That even just sitting looking depressed
and miserable in a pub drinking cheap beer, that you
would be called over by a former porn star in
order to cuckold her husband who is unenthusiastically and weirdly

(01:02:27):
awkwardly touching her knee.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
That's the kind of thing that happens in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Anyway, Ryan Oeil wakes up with a massive hangover and
to find out that his wife's been gone for twenty
two days. He's been writing twenty two in shaving foam
on the mirror. His wife's been gone for twenty two days,
and his dad is downstairs in the kitchen and he

(01:02:52):
looks all roughed up and has clearly had a night
of it, and no one quite knows what's gone on.
And he sits down to start talking, looking through the
last month or so with his dad of sort of
what led to this turn of events. So he sort
of has that you know, sunset boulevard thing, where like

(01:03:13):
the guy's not the Ryan o'neils said at the beginning
of the movie, but that that you know, there's a
wrap around kind of device.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
So sort of I think it's around the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Third act that we start coming back into present day
and then the story with him and his dad kind
of continues from there. But the whole second half of
the first act and the whole of the second act
is basically flashback. And in this flashback we learn about
well lots of things, but mainly kind of insane drug

(01:03:46):
fueled sexual escapades. So what happens as soon as he
so we don't know what's happened. His wife's been missing
for twenty two days. He's talking to his Dad's what's
the next thing we need to pay attention to, right,
It's that his ex wife was holding a lot of parties?
Is that what it was?

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
Right? Exactly? And wings Hauser happens to appear as the
police chief just happens to appear. He's the acting police
that's right. Yeah, So he's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Not even the police chief. We never meet the police
chief or anyone to say or why he's acting, and
not just the police chief, but he's the acting police chief.
But boy is he acting? I mean, wings Hauser is acting.
You if you were sat in the nosebleeds at Yankee
Stadium and this is on a small twenty inch CRT

(01:04:33):
screen down on the dog in the dugout you can
still see wings Hauser acting you know what I'm saying,
And it's glorious. It's glorious. There's no there's no knocking
of Houser in this movie. He owns this. He saddles
this bitch ump and rides it into the sunset. He

(01:04:54):
is glorious in this movie everything.

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):
Yes, I mean just seeing him act opposite Ryan O'Neil
is just to think where they're both like drinking whiskey
and give each other a hard time. It's absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Yeah, I think so. Ryan O'Neil's a really interesting actor
because I think when in the right role, he is
like charismatic and dynamic as he has to be. But
he's also a guy who, in his best films is
sort of a pathetic asshole. He's sort of always sort

(01:05:31):
of he's not like down on his luck in a
cool boga slinging a shot of whiskey in the corner
of a downtown bar at two am with some jazz
on the jukebox.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
He's not that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
He is the guy in a lonely New England pub
in the middle of the winter, sipping on a cheap
lager in a denim Canadian tuxedo, saying things like that's
because you trusted a man to porn stars who come
in with their effeminate, cuckolden husbands.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
That seemed clearly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Left an indelible market because I keep bringing it up,
but no, it's and it's an interesting energy because most
most people leads or protagonists in movies like this, while yes,
there probably are going to be kind of timid, every

(01:06:30):
man thrown into the tumult of this sort of murder
sex mystery that's going on or sex murder mystery. Either
which way you I don't know which way you like it?
Like him in a sexy murder, but I also like
him of murder with my sex, if you know what
I mean, and I think you do. So, No, he

(01:06:51):
normally your protagonist would he'd be he might be pathetic,
but he would be pathetic in a sort of cool,
maybe sort of crumpled way. Ryan O'Neil, and listen, Lawrence
Journey says it. You know, I had to do it

(01:07:11):
because you've got no balls at one point in the movie.
So it's not like the character is not meant to
be a bit of a spineless goon. But Ryan O'Neill,
for whatever reason you you would think sort of the big,
you know, blonde, red faced, Irish kind of actor that
you know, he would be more John Wayne like, or

(01:07:34):
at least have the you know, from the sort of
troubled ego that you've heard O'Neill can have on set.
Not on this one, apparently on this one he was lovely,
but on other films he has got a bit of
a Debra Winger style reputation.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Rightly or wrongly, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
There's been a lot of like reevaluation of these histories
of Winger and O'Neill and Sean Young and other people
who had reputations. But he does have that reputation. And
you know, and yet instead of being a you know,
having this sort of bravado and ego of a wings

(01:08:09):
Hauser and look, Howser earns it. I'm not Again, that's
not a slight on Hauser. If I'm wings Hauser, I'm
fucking wings fucking Houser, you know what I mean. I
am both Barrelshausen. There's not a goddamn thing that you're
going to tell me to do that I won't be
knocking out of the park.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
But if you're Ryan O'Neil.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
There's a certain there's a certain weird respect I have
for him that he's so willing to play.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Sort of chumps a little. I mean, even though he's a.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Chump that every single woman who looks at him, you know,
drops her pants within thirty seconds. I understand that he's
he's still Ryan O'Neill, right, but he plays such you know,
quivering jellies most of the time.

Speaker 4 (01:08:54):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean I think in this case
it was Nora Mailer, you know, Okay Mailers to play
this part. I'll play the part that it's funny you
mentioned that he he he said he was you know,
he was good on the set. Here's friends with him.
The kind of the scene that this movie's most infamous for,
which we'll get it too in a little bit. Apparently
Mailer like saw that as a betrayal that Maylor. Ryan

(01:09:19):
O'Neil saw it as a betrayal that Maylor left that
scene in the film.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Oh yeah, after the fact, Ryan Neil was not happy
with the picture.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
No, I know that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Why, oh god, oh man, oh god. But again, it's funny,
wings Houser says. Wings Houser says in his interview, and
Norman Mayler says in his interview, like.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
Those lines are the hardest lines to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Deliver, right, especially when you've got Mailer on a camera
whizzing three sixty around you. Right. And if and I'm sorry,
if David Lynchen made this movie, everyone be fucking creaming
their jeans over it and saying how fucking wild and
weird and intentional and whatever it was. I'm sorry this

(01:10:04):
influenced David Lynch, and I won't I will not hear
this influenced Twin Peaks like you wouldn't believe. And it's
not just because Angelo bad Lament he did the score,
although there is a sort of a very obvious, not
not since score like he does for Twin Peaks, but
it's still very bad lamented, Like you can you know,

(01:10:24):
he kind of paints the whole movie with with the
with you know, there's something that swings between his later
Lynch work and and something earlier by like a Goblin,
Like if you watch like Deep Red and then you
think that Goblin did the score for and then you
think of sort of the breathy, eerie, pulsing soundtrack that

(01:10:45):
bat Lament he does over the supposed ghost scenes or
the scenes where maybe the ghost star or the spirits
are out and about in the house. There is a
corolly there, you know, a corol Well, am I saying
that wrong? All right? I don't know how I'm saying
and whatever corolly current, Carly, stop trying to use corollary.
I don't know what the word is. There's a califlower

(01:11:08):
between the music that Goblin did for Deep Red or
or there Ubert, the music the Battlement he would do later,
and the music here. It's it's it's a I think
it's a very influential movie. And I think that if
another filmmaker made this, or Canon hadn't released it, or
you know, it wasn't Ryan O'Neil, it was someone else,

(01:11:29):
or you know it was if this was Calma Cloughton
and Isabella Rossellini and wings Hauser and it was directed
by David Lynch. But otherwise it was exactly the same movie.
The old man, Oh God, Oh Man, Oh God scene
would be heralded as this great parody soap opera, weirdo
gonzo masterpiece. But because it's Norman Mailer and Ryan O'Neil

(01:11:51):
in the Canon movie, people have turned it into a
meme and look, is it ridiculous, Yes, of course it's ridiculous,
but it's kind of it's it's ridiculous when anyone in
a movie goes no, because I don't know if you've
ever been in life before, but like when shit happens
in life, you don't stop what you're doing, drop all

(01:12:11):
of your cutlery and go no, and like get down
on your knees and scream at the heavens. Like you
don't do that most of the time when you go
into shock. You go into shock, like most of the
time your body goes we're gonna shut you down a
little bit, so you have time to absorb this. And
then even if later you scream or cry or get
angry or whatever it is, it's it's not immedia. So

(01:12:33):
these sort of phony scenes where people go oh my god,
no what and kind of scream at the these are
silly anyway. So to suddenly like point to this scene,
which all right, yes, it's filmed a little operatically and
it's but I think that only lends to the credence
that Mailer meant it to be overblown and meant it

(01:12:57):
to be peridic, and that at that point in the
movie and wings Houses take on it is like, look,
that shit is difficult to do it the best of times,
and you know, we were already it was already cold.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
He's out a rocky outcrop, the camera's whizzing.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Around him, Meyler's shouting at him or whatever, and Melee
keeps saying like, go bigger, and go bigger, and go bigger.
And this is what he did because that's what he
was told to do by the director, and that was
the situation he was in. And Wings like perfectly respects
the performance and thanks Ryan O'Neil's amazing in it for
good enough for wings Man, it's good enough for me well.

Speaker 4 (01:13:31):
Because I think, you know, to Wings's point, he probably
also feels like Mailer should have cut it, you know,
like don't don't keep it in there. But Mayler sees
something in it that gives it this frenetic energy that
the film has, right which I can understand that O'Neil
would feel betrayed because he didn't nail the take, that
he feels like he looks silly doing it, But I

(01:13:52):
also see Mayler's point that it just adds to this
overall feel of the film that yes, yes, younger people
ironically are gonna make a me out of it, but
it is if you enjoy this kind of movie. If
you enjoy this movie, it fits perfectly like PLoP down
in there. And like you said, if David Lynch does this,
people are reading into it like five different ways that

(01:14:12):
he's trying to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
What if David Lynch does this, someone's already masturbated eight
times and drawn like a Jesus face in their ejaculate
and then written a twenty page blog about it. If
fucking David Lynch does it, or you know, if fucking
Christopher Nolan does something like that or whatever. You know, people,
people are just fucking falling over themselves to you know,

(01:14:33):
if Hack Snyder had put this in Batman versus Superman,
everything like, oh my god, yes, release the Snyder cut
of O'Neill doing oh man, oh god, like forty times.
You know what I mean? You know, we would have
all lost pairs of pants to the rabbit. Amount of

(01:14:55):
orgasms that nerds online would be having about this scene
if David Lynch or Hack Snyder or Christopher Nolan does it.
Because Norman Mailer is rowing a Neil and it's in
a movie that we're meant to ironically watch according to
I don't know who. The online movie nazis have no idea. Well,

(01:15:19):
I reject that. Am I going to say that it's
the greatest performance ever? No, of course not. Am I
going to say that maybe Mayler looked at it and went, ah,
let's leave it, and it's kind of funny and he
has like a kind of sicker, twisted sense of humor.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
Sure, whatever, I think that within the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Dreamlike soap opera meets forties pulp noir that he is
telling it fits fine. As I said, if it had
a big Hollywood orchestral score behind it and was in
black and white, I can spit and hit a scene
like that in a film noir with even with performances

(01:15:56):
by Bogart or Cagney or any of them, in quite
the same vein. So if you're not versed in cinema, yes,
it stands out like a sore thumb. If you are,
there's scenes like that, and another one I'd love to
call out that's a very kind of deliberate camera move
but also some glorious deliberate lighting, And that is after
the first scene of O'Neill and Howser in the basement

(01:16:21):
office that he is occupying, where they are gloriously like
over lit, but they're lit where sort of there is
this like shadow up underneath them and then light coming
down on them, and it's very contrasted. It's not they've
made very little attempt to light the rest of their face.
It's a very intentional thing. And at the end of

(01:16:43):
the scene, Howser like stands up and does this ridiculous
sip of his whiskey and then wipes his mouth off,
and as he does in this sort of quite kind
of Terry Gilliams kind of shot, it rolls all the
way back the Dolly dollies all the way back to
the back of the office, and the office then is

(01:17:03):
lined with these like Brazil like filing cabinets or right
O'wellian style filing cabinets, with this big looming underlit Houser
at the front. It's a glorious scene, but again it's
a scene that is very purposefully cinematic. It's going, it's
Malee going, oh, I've always wanted to do one of

(01:17:24):
these scenes. Let me do one of these scenes, you
know what I mean? And I kind of love that
it's sort of student filmmaking, but in a in a
with a with a budget.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
Right, It's the kind of thing that like, if Scorsese
did it in a movie, it would either be considered
like genius and the greatest thing that he could have
ever done, or considered like how Scorsese's fallen off and
he's not a great director anymore. Right, And you could
have even in the same movie, critics could watch that
same scene and have different opinions on it to that's
you know, stark a degree, and I think it's it's

(01:17:56):
the same thing with with with this movie. It's like,
you know, people see mailor do it just get over yourself,
you think you're a big director or whatever. But it
adds to the kind of the fun of this movie
and the entertaining quality of this movie, of this just
sort of Mailer, like you said, just beIN like I
want to do that, I want to try that, I
want to see what that looks like and do it
and then it just keeps it in. Yeah, but again,

(01:18:16):
it really is one of those things with movies, and
I know it makes for boring podcast conversation to say
movies are subjective and you know o pinions are subjective,
but I think just the way people describe movies, I've
been beginning to see it more and more that like
that's that was. It's kind of like the perfect example
of the kind of scene that you would just see
so many varying opinions on. You know that there's there's

(01:18:39):
not really going to be a mean that clusters around
a scene like that. It's not going to be you know,
you either love that or you hate it, and it's
either the reason that director's falling off or the directors
still got their fastball.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Yeah, I mean, on the back of the Blu ray,
they've got some old reviews. Ironically, it says critics are raving,
but it says bold, innovative, wonderful, And then the next
critic says stinks. Then another one says giant death orgy
with lots of maniacs. Then another one says one of
the worst ever, my grandmother could do better. And then
someone says excellent, crazy entertainment, very funny, and another one

(01:19:11):
says gross, sleazy garbage. You know. So it's one of
those things where this is a movie that will divide
and I'm okay with that, and I'm okay, having picked
aside quite quite happily of being in the side of
people who love it. So we flashed back to Ryan

(01:19:32):
O'Neill sitting loosely in a redecorated mailer's house. And what's
hilarious about this is Mayler, because he was using his
own property for the film, got Cannon to pay for
a remodel of his house, and much to his wife's
annoyance and chagrin, he painted it like these pastels that
we were talking about, because he wanted everything to have

(01:19:53):
the sort of dreamy fifties pastel quality to it. Either
that or we've just been watching a lot of Miami vice.
And his wife was like, you'll be changing that back, right,
and he was like, fucking whatever, and no, he never
changed it back for like years and years and years
and years. I think it was like ten years after
the movie, and his wife was like, right, but paint
the fucking house white again. But yeah, So anyway, you

(01:20:16):
go to this party scene, and this party scene is
fantastic because he's just recruited a bunch of drugs from
down the local pub. And from everything I've understood about
Provincetown is it's this weird sort of artistic cross section
where you know, everyone from like Atlantic based fishermen, very
hardy kind of rural people mingle with bikers and cross

(01:20:37):
dressers and LGBTQYA people and artists and hippies and weirdos
and sex perverts. Apparently that's that's who resides in Provincetown.
And so we cut to this party, and this party
is I mean, I don't know, you could watch this
on repeat. That the characters that are in this party

(01:21:00):
makes no sense. It's also one of those things where
when the movie occasionally slips into like full blown nineteen
eighty seven, while it doesn't work at all because the
rest of them, the rest of the movie should have
a like kind of soundtrack, it doesn't. It has an
Angela a batimental soundtrack, but which but which is equally

(01:21:22):
sort of film noir parody anyway, I think Twin Peaks
or whatever, or those kind of scores that he does
for that show. But when it occasionally has a piece
of like popular music, it's so jarring, yet it kind
of is wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:21:40):
Like the end credits, for example.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Has like an eighties power ballad like son Elmo's fire
style song over it. I'm like, where anywhere in this
movie does this music make sense?

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
Because it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
This movie is it has a couple of eighties scenes,
but ultimately is out of time.

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
It's about you know, love.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
Triangles and murder and you know, over zealous police chiefs
and drug deals gone bad. Like it's not you know,
a big eighties John Hughes movie or even even a
less than zero movie. Yet suddenly we're in the middle
of this nineteen eighties party where everyone's dancing around in
leather vests and sailors caps and weird, weird kind of things,

(01:22:24):
and Wings shows up to basically say I'm the the
acting chief of police and you know, I don't know
what's going on around here, and there's like a topless
woman walking about and it's all very buck Nallian. And
it doesn't take thirty seconds for the hostess of the party,
we find out is Ryan O'Neill's wife Paddy, to come

(01:22:45):
up to Wings and be like, why you manifant that
for me? Come with me and my boobs and we'll
go get She's doing a big soap opa style Southern
bell accent, and thus this allows Houser and Only to
meet and sip whiskey as the only adults at the party.
Everyone else is acting very childish, but these guys are

(01:23:08):
gonna sit in the corner and drink whiskey and commiserate,
right right.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Yeah, And it's it's like if I met Wingshauser, I
guess I'm young for him to ask a question like this,
But I think if somebody who was born in the
forties or fifties met Wingshauser and they were drinking, I
could see him as actual Wingshauser, not just his character
in the movie, but as wings Hauser say, hey, were
you in Vietnam?

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:23:31):
And that person, I don't know what you're talking about,
Like you just seem like someone who's in Vietnam, you know,
Like like when he does this in the movie, it's like,
so Wingshauser, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
Oh, completely, Because you believe that Hauser has lived every
life that we've watched them live on film, you just believe, Well,
Houso was in Vietnam, and Houso was a chief of
police at some point, and.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
Howso you know, you just believe he was.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
These characters will get to the fact that Hous's house
is decorated in this movie, is decorated with photographs of him,
including one of him in Vietnam brandishing a bloody machette
at the camera as if the as if the American
news photographer or even the American Army photographers coming at him,

(01:24:21):
and Wings went, I've just beheaded this this Asian fuck.
I want you to take a picture. You know this,
I've just killed this Vietnamese bastard. I want you to
take a picture of me and my bloody machete, and
then I'm gonna take it home and frame that eight
by eleven and hang it on the wall of my
luxury New England house along with oh that scene where

(01:24:44):
Ryan O'Neil goes to Isabella Rossellini and Wings houses house.
Every I don't know if you noticed, but the camera
goes about It's not a full three sixty, it kind
of does two seventy around the three main sides of
the room, and in every shot, every shot, there is
a gun rack behind her. So the room must have

(01:25:07):
like eight gun racks because the camera goes all the
way around, but in the back of every shot is
a different gun rack. It's kind of genius the way
they've gone. Well, if wings Hauser lived here or certainly
the incarnation of wings Houser were getting for this picture,
he would have definitely a framed eight by eleven of

(01:25:27):
him with a machete in Vietnam having just killed a man.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Definitely he would have that. That's definitely a thing he
would have.

Speaker 2 (01:25:34):
And then he would have lots and lots of gun racks,
more guns, more guns, by the way, than any like
wings Houser couldn't carry even if he had straps and
belts and whatever, he couldn't carry all the guns he
has in his house. He is enough for an entire
militia just in his living room, god forbid, once in
his bedroom. You know exactly because.

Speaker 4 (01:25:54):
In the book, you know, when they have this conversation,
you know, right right, Madden goes to see his ex
wife or his ex girlfriend. She is explaining to him
through very you know, multiple paragraphs and pages about how
dangerous her husband is, you know, wings Hauser's character. And
it's almost like Mahler said, Okay, how can I take

(01:26:16):
these pages of plot exposition and just put them on
the screen for like thirty seconds for you to get
the sense of it. There, Oh, I've got it, Okay. So,
because like they actually explained that Mahler's character killed like
it was like more than one person that he'd beheaded
in Vietnam with a machete. So it's like, okay, set
of having Isabella Rosselini say that for like multiple minutes
of plot exposition, let's just have a picture Wingshauser, which

(01:26:38):
I just loove that idea, that energy like that, like
just the way that Mayler decided this is how I'm
going to adapt my book to this movie. And these
decisions that he's made, they're they're fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
They are fantastic, They're wonderful. I want that picture of
Howso a machete framed in my house so badly, So
if anyone's listening, who can make that happen, please make
that happen. There's a there's a people out there who
have made, you know, the parody Duck referenced movies that
are at the beginning of Howard the Duck where it's

(01:27:12):
like Howard the Duck, but it's like the Indiana.

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):
Jones how the Dark or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
I have that Indiana Jones parody poster that someone's managed
to scan and print, so I'm sure they can scan
and print this wings House picture. It's on it's on
Blu Ray now, so, uh, you know, it's at least
ten eightyp so we should at least be able to
get around eight by eleven. But no, it's it's Howser
is fantastic. So it turns out and actually, as they

(01:27:39):
think about it, now, what this movie is really about
is just that Ryan O'Neill and wings Hauser have slept
with all the same women because Howser. So Howser is
now married to Ryan O'Neill's ex girlfriend, Isabella Rossallini. Ryan
O'Neill and Isabella Rossellini once went on a weird Christian

(01:27:59):
swingers weekend to fuck each other's wives and husbands with,
of all people, Penn Gillette and Deborah Stipe, right yeah,
wings them through a series of years, loses Isabella Rossellini,
but gains Deborah Stipe, who's gone off and like married.

(01:28:23):
First of all, married like a yeah, went off and
married like a rich guy. Right, and she marries.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
A guy who used to be friends with Ryan O'Neill.

Speaker 4 (01:28:36):
Right again, This is this is all stuff that in
the book is covered over like chapters. They just kind
of throw at you here. But yeah, John Bedford Lloyd
plays Wordly. This this rich guy who Deborah Stipe.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
Married Connecticut, Massachusetts fop kind of. He'sish, floppy head and
and bisexual.

Speaker 4 (01:28:55):
Right right, exactly exactly, and so yeah, and so then
she she marries him, becomes rich, and then divorces him,
and in the divorce, like you know us, Ryan O'Neill,
who's like their chauffeur to essentially to go you know,
to run away. So she marries Ryan O'Neal, but gets
a whole bunch of money in the divorce settlement. So

(01:29:16):
that's what they're living off of business.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
And she forces Wardly to hire him, right a chauffeur,
because her whole plan was I had such a wild
weekend of passion with O'Neill, right that I need to
always be with O'Neill. And therefore she went up but
she needed money, right, I'm right in this right exactly.

(01:29:42):
And he went into prison for three years because of
drugs or something.

Speaker 4 (01:29:45):
Right, He's trying to sell coke, yeah, and he got
busted selling coke. So we did three years in the clank.
And then when he got out, he bumps into her
and she's like, oh, I've got a rich husband, now
why don't I make you the chauffeur, and yeah, so
then he Now I don't know if they mentioned it,
maybe they do at some point that right. Also part
of the deal was that she was trying to get
Ryan o'reel to kill her husband because that way she'd

(01:30:06):
get the tire inheritance. And he just, you know, he's
that kind of like as More's theory said, he doesn't
have the balls.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
Right, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
So that's the other thing, so you know, and again
you have to keep this all in perspective, right, so
you have right. So Ryan O'Neill was going out with
Isabella Rossellini. He asked her to do this weird swingers
twist twist thing. They both came away with it, not
trusting and not particularly happy with each other, so they

(01:30:37):
went their separate ways. In the meantime, Debra Stype, who
was so enamored with Ryan O'Neil, has said, I will
go off and get rich, then I'll divorce him or whatever,
and then we'll get married and blah blah blah blah
blah Isabel. In the meantime, Isabella Rossellini meets Wingshauser and

(01:30:58):
marries him. Right, Wingshauser is now it just happens to
become the acting chief of police. We don't know why
he's acting. We don't what's happening active chief of police.
We're here at Provincetown, right, yeah, coming to Provincetown one evening,

(01:31:20):
is said, former porn star former, and she makes the
point of saying, like triple ex former porn star and
her which is Francis Fisher, right, yes, yeah, exactly, and
her yet again another sort of effeminate, possibly bisexual, possibly gay,
cock old husband who they just show up. She's like, oh,

(01:31:42):
I said, we had to go to the right tip
of the pinky finger of Massachusetts, and Larnie had to agree.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
Blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
So they they then have this you know, his wife's
been gone twenty two days or whatever. So he then
has this wild night of passion with this other woman
from Fisher in front of Lannie. They will then both
wind up getting murdered. But we also find out before
that happens that Wingshauser was also having an affair with

(01:32:16):
Francis Fisher and Deborah Stripe, right right, wasn't he having
an affair with both women? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
Yes, yes, exactly, Yeah, Because In the book, we find
out that Wingshauser's character has an insatiable sexual appetite.

Speaker 2 (01:32:32):
He says in the movie, he says, I have sex
like five times a day or something with at these
three different types of women, whatever it is. And then
she calls him mister five timer because he has to
have sex with.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
Her five times, right or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
Yeah, well, I mean, and looking at wings Houser, you're like, yeah,
that's entirely who he is. Yeah, he's a very aggressive
lover who who is insatiable in his eroticism. Because that's
what wings of screams in this week exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:33:02):
We've all seen Art of Dying. We know, we know
what happens with wings in a sex scene with milk
and food and other things.

Speaker 3 (01:33:08):
Oh yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (01:33:09):
And it's it's almost you feel you feel most sorry
for Isabella Roussolini because she is such a sort of
a porcelain creature in this movie, such a kind of quiet,
soft but she's been so abused by these two fucking men.

Speaker 3 (01:33:25):
It's just so irresponsible. But there is so with all.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
This going on. Uh and and basically throughout the movie,
it's sort of cut to the chase. Throughout the movie,
various people either go missing and or are found having
been murdered. And because Ryan O'Neil has blacked out and
is still trying to kind of piece together this weird
night that he had with Francis Fisher and Patrick Sullivan,

(01:33:54):
Lannie and Jessica, and because when he came to he
found blood in his jeep and various other things, he's
convinced that maybe he had something to do with it.
He's trying to work it out with his dad by
kind of talking through the whole thing and following the situation. Meanwhile,
there are love triangles and recriminations and sex and everything
else that's happening between at least Ryan O'Neill, Wingshuser, and

(01:34:19):
three of the main women in the movie. And you
never quite know until much later in the movie. Are
all these people setting him up? Is he part of
the setup? Is wings Houser somehow setting up the two
women and him, or actually is John Bedford Lloyd setting
everybody up. There's also in the midst of all this

(01:34:42):
craziness a drug deal that is not a drug deal,
but somehow scams wardly out of two million dollars even
though there is no cocaine even though we know that
Ryan O'Neill does do cocaine and has a stash, but
he also has a stash in marijuana. So it's quite
possible that Ryan O'Neil could in fact be this drug

(01:35:03):
kingpin that they've been trying to find in Province down
all along, because there's some indication that there's like secret
codes that when they meet this person, they've got to
say this, and then they're like, oh, you're the cocaine dealer,
and where who you give them money to it. There's
all this sort of stuff going on, but that's never
fully really explained, and it's never really shown that either
wings Wardy or Ryan O'Neil know anything about drug smuggling

(01:35:26):
or drug dealing at all. The only time O'Neill did it,
he got arrested. So that's all in the mix. And
then there is an answer. There is an ending, and
there is an ending that features, let's just say, a
giant headless body being put into what malten plaster of
Paris Like that is a weird fucking scene. There's a

(01:35:48):
whole dialogue scene while one of the characters is holding
a chain which is a giant naked female body with
its head missing and white like plaster, parasol whatever like white.
It's interesting because of what happens in hologram man. We'll
discover later. But yeah, this, yeah, this random madness to

(01:36:13):
do with these headless bodies and wrapping them in plaster
or whatever it is that's being done. And then there
are these two local ne'er do wells that I think also, oh,
they were in on the seance. That's the other thing.
They were in on the seance that may or may
not have unleashed a bunch of dead sailors and hookers

(01:36:34):
who may or may not actually be the puppet masters
behind the whole thing. Because the movie also seems to
intimate that maybe the only reason there were all these
murders and bunking going on is because the spirits have
been possessing all of these people all along, and we
and we don't know, right. That's that's sort of did

(01:36:55):
I cover just about everything right there?

Speaker 4 (01:36:57):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, because it's interesting. In the book there
is no drug deal. It's a it's a real estate deal.
It's gone wrong, and so a lot of like sort
of the convoluted stuff, and also the seance is also
it's more alluded to than it is like this real
thing that kind of happens. So it's it's interesting the
way that that he Yeah, like you said, this plot,

(01:37:20):
it's it's very convoluted because it's almost like he didn't
want to make like a three hour epic, which is
what I guess his book would have to have been
if he had, you know, kind of put it all together.
But the decisions of the things that decided to keep
or change and and put together, Like listening to you
go through it all there, it does it sounds you
you like, I don't know how I would feel if

(01:37:40):
I hadn't read the books. I had the book to
be able to lead on certain like parts of the story,
but without the book, it's it really is just kind
of this madness. It's all jumbled together.

Speaker 2 (01:37:50):
Yeah. But and although it is told in flashback, and yes,
at one point the Ryan O'Neil is Bryan O'Neill in
his own flashback, and then he has a flashback about
more Ryan O'Neill in the even further past while already
in a flashback like that definitely happens. I just don't

(01:38:13):
know if he then goes a third layer. I can't
remember if there's like a third layer, because there's so many,
it's like a John Landis dream sequence. He keeps getting
woken up and I'm wait, I'm like, wait, is this
the present?

Speaker 3 (01:38:24):
Is this the dream?

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
Or is this the flashback? But despite it being very messy,
and I think it's intentionally meant to be a little confusing,
because he also believed, along with believing he was making
a comedy, he also believed he was making a ghost story.
He thinks this is a horror film, and it's a
horror film. If you took out all the gore and

(01:38:48):
body horror from a Clive Barker movie but just kept
the they're a ghost behind the wall, pseudo psycho sexual
you know, manipulating people's emotions type thing from like a
hell Raiser or like the religious imagery of a raw

(01:39:10):
Head Rex or you know, the outcast nature of night Breed,
whatever it is. If you took sort of Clive Barker's
essence but removed all the body horror and all the
gore and everything, but just made it about like behind
the walls, there are other worlds that may be manipulating

(01:39:31):
this one, coupled with just an airy sense of honnies
and a fascination with religious psycho sexual nonsense. That's how
close it gets to being a horror movie, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:39:47):
And I think that the addition of Lawrence Tierney as
the dad who is the one like dumping bodies out
in the ocean and you know, having these tough guy
conversations with wings Hauser just like it kind of adds
to that. Like I don't want to say he's Donald
Pleasant from the Halloween movies, but it's like this kind
of this more I guess it's it's like a gruffer

(01:40:08):
version of Donald pleasants, it's but it's you know, it's
this wise character.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
It could also be looked at as a Dante's story,
as a seventh circle of Hell, especially with the kind
of ever lasting flashbacks and the fact that it is,
you know, along with a movie like After Hours or whatever.
It is another movie about eight and it takes place
over forty eight hours rather than over one night. But
essentially it's a man is put through the ring, a

(01:40:35):
storyline which you know, there's any number of those movies
falling down as one in its own way, you know,
After Hours things like that. But like Eyes White Shut,
which is sort of again, it's that's another movie that
sort of has been reevaluated lately. But this has a
very eyes white shut feel to it, a very eyes

(01:40:55):
white shut feel to it, this idea of sort of
you're watching it, but you are watching it once removed.
You are not in the story. You are watching it
once removed, and there is a sort of dreamlike quality
to the storytelling. And it's another thing where like, yeah,
people can attack the flashbacks and the structure of this

(01:41:16):
film and the you know, the first person narrative and
the voiceovers and everything like that. But if you think, well, wait,
he's making a ghost dream movie or ghosts in your
dreams movie, again, he kind of succeeds because it is
it's disjointed. You never quite know where you are in
the narrative. You get caught up at some points and
at other points you're a little confused. Well, that's what

(01:41:39):
I'm like in a dream, especially one of those dreams
where you kind of go from room to room, like
one of those dreams that seems to be progressing, but
when you analyze it when you wake up, you're like, wait,
none of those rooms mates, you know it? Definitely, I
think again, he has that vibe to it, so I

(01:41:59):
think that only succeeds. And I like the idea that
he's sort of like, well, you know, it's it's a
rom com, it's a parody. It's a film noir. It's
a soap opera, it's a ghost story, it's all it's
a cannon film. It's all of these things and none
of the above. And it's got wings House and Ryan
O'Neill and.

Speaker 3 (01:42:19):
But but it is.

Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
It's one of those where you have to sort of
dial into the wavelength because if you do watch this
too removed and too arch and too knowing and too ironic.

Speaker 3 (01:42:34):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
I think I.

Speaker 3 (01:42:36):
Actually think you missed some of the atmosphere it's playing with.

Speaker 4 (01:42:39):
Yeah, no, I agree completely. I think you've got to
know who normal Mailer is. You've got to like read,
you know, and not just Naked in the Dead, because
I think that this definitely doesn't feel like one of
those normal Mailer books. But you know, read some you know,
read some of his other stuff, even some of his
like nonfiction stuff. I think it's movie a book called
Armies of the Night where he talked about, you know,
and during the Vietnam War he was protesting, and he

(01:43:02):
essentially the deal was he want to get himself arrested
during a protest and be out in time to go
to a party in New York. And he ends up
down in like like northern Virginia in a holding cell
and like a high school where he meets like Gnom
Chomsky and stuff like that. It's a very ridiculous story.
But when you read that kind of sensibility of like
how he you know, took that incident and turned it
into a book, it's that's the kind of wavelength that

(01:43:25):
you're on here. And and so you've got to be
a fan of Mailer and and and and again. Beyond
just you know, armies and m sorry naked and the
dead or like execution or something, you've got to it's
you've got to get be into his overall vibe. And
if you are, you'll you'll love a movie like this.

Speaker 2 (01:43:41):
It's like how I feel William Shatner walks that line
between people, people who know his sense of humor and
get his very dry, very twisted, very odd Canadian sense
of humor. Then you think that most of the time
that you see Shatner saying something that other people.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
Would just be like, what did he say.

Speaker 2 (01:44:02):
He's doing it because he thinks it's funny, right, like,
genuinely thinks it's fun not that he thinks it's malicious,
that he genuinely thinks it's funny. And other people look
at Shatner and go, he's a fucking asshole. And I
feel like this movie is that you like, you get
you either get that it's having fun with itself and
with the nature of cinema and the nature of writing

(01:44:22):
and the nature of you know, because it's also the
writer's thing of well, I'm gonna cast myself as the
protagonist in this movie where sure, okay, yes, I get
himbroiled in a murder plot, but also I have a
badass father, and every woman we meet wants to jump
on my old John Thomas, even if she's married or
I've already ruined her entire emotional core, they still want me,

(01:44:48):
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:44:48):
And that's a very writery thing.

Speaker 2 (01:44:52):
Is essentially cast a clone of yourself because he's kind
of playing Meyler kind of you know, and it's funny
to that. In the interview on the disc, Mayler is
also wearing a denim shirt because I think of denim
when I think of like Ryan O'Neil in this movie
for some reason, until it gets all blooded of course
on the on the seat of his fa So yeah,

(01:45:14):
I mean overall, I really enjoy it. Standout scenes as
we've talked about, you know, the pub scene with the
Massachusetts and the that's why you don't trust men or
whatever that line is that he says across the bar
and she gets all giddy and he's weirdly touching it.
There's that scene, which is amazing. There's the scene in
the police acting police chief's office where Houser knows more

(01:45:41):
than he's letting on, but he's letting Ryan O'Neil kind
of spin a little bit. That's a great scene, as
I said, ends with that awesome shot. The well, the
whole scene. I mean that scene that is post the
orgy night. So they go to the couple. He reads
in uh, cream screw magazine.

Speaker 4 (01:46:04):
Whatever, yes, screw magazines.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
He reads in screw magazine that there's a white Christian
couple that want to have like a swinger's weekend with
another white Christian couple. And it's really funny because you
see him having sex with Deborah Stipend in the background.

Speaker 3 (01:46:18):
You can hear.

Speaker 2 (01:46:19):
Isabella Rossellini clearly being incredibly pleasured by Pendelette. Thankfully we
don't physically see that, but you it's in your mind's
eye the whole time, a beardless Pendelette pleasuring and Isabella Rossollini,
which is just it's baffling enough that Mailer is able
to put that grotesque image in my mind.

Speaker 3 (01:46:38):
But that's what's happening.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
And the very next day there's this scene in a
very kind of southern Baptist church house, this kind of
white church house, with this big ominous black cross on
the back and again sort of in a very weirdly
Can Russell type way. But Pendulette has this amazing monologue

(01:47:01):
the sermon that he's giving that we know, and even
Debora's Stipe in the audience kind of giggly acknowledges he's
talking about the fact that they all just fucked, like
he's talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:47:14):
Like their fucking.

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
And they even sing a hymn that's like the end
of the hymn is he comes, he comes or whatever? Right, yes,
And so it's it's a thick with sexual innuendo that scene,
and it's so well written. I was just I was
applauding his little uh innuendoes at every turn.

Speaker 4 (01:47:35):
Well, because again this is the scene that's added strictly
for the movie. In the book, Penchulette's character is really tall.
I remember he was a chiropractor or an actual doctor,
but he's like really tall. And that's kind of the
idea is because he's really tall, he's well in doubt
and so he's ugly, but that's why he would be,
you know. But there's none of this reverend or church
stuff involved at all. And so again the fact that

(01:47:57):
Nora Mayler's like, Okay, how do I invay the orgy
in a shorter period of time in a way that's
as most effective as possible? And he goes, okay, what
if I have Pendulatet be a reverend and do the
sermon where he's describing the sex acts. It's again just
a fascinating idea. What this is. Now I'm going to
adapt longer scenes into shorter scenes in my movie and

(01:48:20):
the kind of the zaniest way possible.

Speaker 2 (01:48:23):
Well, it's it's it's funny because the next movie we're
going to talk about, Hologram Man, has a sequence in
it that, because of our hero has now an affinity
to like shoot electric light streaks out of his hand
as him and his girlfriend are getting hot and heavy
on the couch. It literally cuts to like other electrical

(01:48:43):
objects either being fried or like being turned on. And
it's sort of that thing where there's like suddenly a
montage that's meant to mean, you know, ejaculation is happening,
but it's all done with like electrical items. In the
one I find in a kitchen, it's similar. Two tough
guys don't dance, and I never would have thought there

(01:49:04):
would have been such a connection between the two. But
the entire sermon that he gives is not only obviously
an indictment of the church, a subtle indictment of the church,
but that is a sermon that could be taken as
being very holy and talking about the nature of sin
and Jesus' relation and all the rest of it. But

(01:49:25):
we know and they know, it's about fucking, fucking, fucking.
And then they're going to sing a song that he's
specifically picked so that he can hear the women he
just had sex with shout. He comes, He comes in
the middle of a church in front of everyone else,
and suddenly it gets all Ken Russell up in this
bitch because Ken, if you don't know, Ken Russell loved

(01:49:47):
to put religious iconography juxtaposed with sex, no more so
than in Crimes of Passion, of course, with Anthony Perkins
and Kathleen Turner. That's very Ken Russell example of what
I'm talking about here. And Norman Mayler plays with it
a little bit with a scene. So I love all that.

(01:50:07):
I love all the running around and checking the holes
in the field and finding seven heads, and you know,
and then that incredible sequence with him and Tourney. I mean,
this is where Mayler knows, let you know that he's
in on the joke. There's an entire comedic scene where
because he's just got bodies strewn about this small town.
I mean, at the end of this small town, only

(01:50:29):
the guy who runs the pub is ever going to
is going to be alive. Everyone else is fucking dead.
But because he has these bodies strewn around, he has
this wonderful scene where Tourney and O'Neill are throwing bodies
over the edge of their boat in the middle of
the dark, just lit by the moon, and it's a
beautiful scene. It's a really fantastically filmed scene, and it's

(01:50:50):
got this wonderful comedic dialogue over the top of it
about whether all this excitement is going to cure Toorney's
cancer and maybe killing people and disposing of bodies is
is a cure for cancer or something some weird ass
dialogue that's happening. But it's a fucking hilarious scene. It's
played very obviously for comedy, and it's it's as bleak

(01:51:12):
and weird and goofy as anything the Coen Brothers has
ever done. And I adore it. I adore it, Like
those are some of my favorite scenes.

Speaker 4 (01:51:22):
What about you, Matt, Well, So, you know, we talked
about one of my favorites is when Wingshauser and Ryan
O'Neil are kind of sitting across from each other after
the party sort of winding down, and they're drinking and
they're kind of going after each other, you know. I mean,
you know, Ryan o'nian likes a joke I keep drinking
my my liquor. Well, actually it's my wife's liquor, you know,
And so that was probably one of my first favorite scenes.

(01:51:42):
I just really loved that interplay there when she comes
down and he says, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:51:48):
Lady, you're trying to wake the ghosts of hell town.
That's such a like, you know, film.

Speaker 2 (01:51:55):
Noir trying to be like cool but not quite hitting
the mark kind of line. What are you doing, lady,
trying to raise the ghosts of hell town exactly?

Speaker 4 (01:52:05):
And then I mean that scene in the bar where
you know, he meets you know, uh, Francis Fisher and
and Patrick r Patrick Sulvan, the couple there that so
again in the book we find out that they're that
that guy's gay and that he's sort of like using
her as a beard slash like trying to fit into
society kind of thing. And I think that's mentioned.

Speaker 3 (01:52:28):
I think that's revealed later on in the.

Speaker 4 (01:52:30):
Yeah we get a sense for better. Yeah. I mean
the other thing too, is that yeah so so, but
the way that that that that scene is kind of
conveyed in the book and in the in the movie,
it's very similar, Like Francis Fisher, the way she's sort
of talking loudly so that Ryan, you know, to make
Ryan O'Neill think like you're in on the conversation, and
then he finally does butt in on the conversation and

(01:52:52):
suddenly just starts you know, hanging out with them. And
then like you said, when when when he when the
you know, uh, Lonnie that our Patrick's Alvan's character when
he realizes that the woman that he's with has a
thing for Ryan O'Neill, and he'll like grab her knee
and stuff like that to try to be like, oh no,
I'm I'm her husband, you know, I'm here with her.
And Ryan O'Neals just doesn't care. But his character just

(01:53:13):
doesn't care. It's not even that he's not buying it
or you know, he's just ignoring it altogether. And he's
just you know, interacting with Francis Fisher.

Speaker 2 (01:53:21):
Yeah, I mean he's the one who suggests, yeah, like
it's it's a weird night tonight or whatever. He's like,
I could fuck your wife with you watching or whatever,
you know what I mean. That's that's and he does.
He just does. And it's one of the most like
disturbing sequences because it cuts from well what's weird is
it starts inside, right, they're making out in the chair

(01:53:44):
or whatever and stuff, and she goes down on him
or whatever right in the living room. Somehow that moves outside, right, Yes,
And I don't know why and somehow they are. They're
just it's not like they're up against the wall or whatever.
They just stood upright. She's straddling him, and I understand
that is physically possible. But also if you have chairs, beds,

(01:54:08):
living room furniture, walls, all of that is a lot easier.
You know, it's a lot easier to cuckold some you know,
bisexual gentleman in a on a living room rug even
than it is to just suddenly be upright make up.

Speaker 3 (01:54:27):
But it pans over.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):
To his car, and I suppose this is all to
try and tie in weirdly. This is sort of movie
logic to tie in weirdly with the body being discovered
and blah blah blah blah blah later on. But pans
over the car and poor old Loney, it's not like
he's not happy. He's like crying and is he saying
like please stop it or please listen to me, or
please like so sad, it's so sad, devastating. I mean,

(01:54:54):
Ryan O'Neil is not like a good guy. I mean,
I know he ultimately turns out not to be the
but ultimately he's not a good guy. And I think
that and then ultimately sort of the movie ends up
being about the I think, the sadness of you know, chasing,

(01:55:19):
chasing the passion of love but not having any interest
in sustaining it once a relate because ultimately Ryan O'Neal
gets exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:55:28):
What he wants, ye and you feel like and.

Speaker 2 (01:55:31):
I know they try and make it because of the
ghosts and whatever, but if we sort of take the
ghosts out, it gets I don't know how much the
ghosts influencing people, really, it's more the ghosts in this
movie are more like the voodoo is in.

Speaker 3 (01:55:49):
Angel Heart.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
Ultimately, Angel Heart is not about the voodoo, but it's
sort of peppered throughout just to give it that kind
of swampy Southern feeling. And similarly, the ghosts here are
to kind of give the town of Provincetown sort of
a misty, eerie, dead sailors, dead hookers kind of vibe.

(01:56:11):
It's not really a plot point. I can't, I can't.
I'm sorry, Mailer. I can't believe that you think that
the ghost throughout this film, because.

Speaker 3 (01:56:21):
Then they're not.

Speaker 2 (01:56:21):
They're in some key scenes, you know, they do unleash them,
you know, in the Sean scene and you know, there
are a couple of scenes in the house where you see.

Speaker 3 (01:56:33):
O'Neill kind of walking around.

Speaker 2 (01:56:34):
You can hear it's not quite you know, but there's
like spooky, breathy, sort of ghostly synthpop happening in the
in the background, battlemented score happening in the background, and
you know, so it's effective to kind of create an atmosphere.
But I can't call it a plot point. But there

(01:56:55):
is this wonderful sequence at the end which I really
think drive home the whole movie. He's been pining for
Isabella Russelyn. He's clearly what he's thinking about in his
heart because when he gets blitz drunk and is taken
to some rat faced near the well tattoo artist in
the middle of the boondocks, he gets him to tattoo Madeline,
which is Isabella's name on his arms, so clearly she

(01:57:19):
is his supposed soul mate, despite him, you know, finding
orgasms in the arms of Debra Stipe and Francis Fisher,
Madeline is clearly that what he has his heart set on.
But much like him and Deborah Stype's explosive, passionate relationship

(01:57:39):
that ultimately leads to him being disenchanted with her flighty ways,
which is sort of a good observation. It's one of
those things. The thing I fell in love with is
the thing that's going to kill this marriage, you know
what I mean? The flighty passionate, open to anything, throws
big parties, drinks, does coke, you know, is experimental blah.

Speaker 3 (01:57:59):
Blah, blahah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (01:58:01):
That is ultimately the thing that I fell for is
ultimately the thing that's going to be destroying the marriage.
And then there's some there's some implication that even though
he ends up with Russellini, apparently this woman he's always
pined for and wished that he hadn't destroyed in the
way that he did back when they were younger, there's
some implication that he's not happy with that either, and

(01:58:22):
that actually when he shuts the door at the very
end of the movie, while she is skipping around like
a pixie in the background and draping her over the
draping herself over the furniture, he has this very sort
of wet, dead eyed look of fatalism on his face,
and then he shuts the door, with the implication that

(01:58:43):
the ghosts are still trapped inside there with him, and
whether that's the ghost of his up and down relationship
with his family, whether it's the ghost of previous relationships,
or whether it's actual scary ghosts we don't know, or
if it's the ghost of the dead people that he
may not have murdered but may have been partly responsible

(01:59:06):
for their death because he was part of the story
kind of thing. The idea that he is a haunted
man at the end of the movie is sort of
nailed very definitively to the wall, but I think also
done in an artistic, sweet weird way.

Speaker 4 (01:59:25):
Yeah, no, no, I totally agree. I think, yeah, it's
in the book, the main character is more of a
protagonist and you're just sort of letting the story fall up,
and it follows more of your classic film noir, like
can you imagine being in this guy's shoes, And like
there's that scene, for example, where he steals the machete

(01:59:46):
out of the back of Wingshauser's car, the Squark, And
in the book, that scene is so tense because the
way he builds it up, it's almost like this out
of body experience that the character has when he goes
through it. In the movie, it's just like boom, boom boom.
He just does it and that's it. And in a way,
it's almost like you're kind of divorced from that film
noir sense of like I'm putting myself in the the

(02:00:09):
shoes of the protagonist and imagining myself having to go
through this, or he's like the anchor. You know, there
is no anchor you keep you know that there's.

Speaker 2 (02:00:17):
No you're abundantly aware the whole time that you're watching
a movie.

Speaker 3 (02:00:21):
Yes, exactly, but but you are okay with that.

Speaker 4 (02:00:25):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I agree, And there is no like
relating to Ryan O'Neill's character, he's not you know, and
I but I think that's also kind of a fun
idea that Maylor does here. It's and I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:00:38):
So there's some conversations maybe about the.

Speaker 2 (02:00:42):
Sexual politics or relationship politics or the uh the behavior
of a narcissistic but ultimately hopeless man that I think
you wouldn't want to see yourself in, but you could
you you could recognize maybe maybe not you, yourselfie, you

(02:01:04):
could recognize that behavior from real life. I don't think
that the well, the female relationships in this movie and
the sexual relationships in this movie feel very overblown cinematic
and oh that would never happen. I think there's a
there's like a waft of realism to it as well,

(02:01:24):
because it's so weird that you kind of go, well,
I don't know, I've had a few rough nights in
university that may or may not have ended up in
a weird scenario that you kind of look back on
and go, did that really happen? You know what I mean.
I think there's some of that in there maybe, yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:01:41):
But but Ryan O'Neill is so Ryan O'Neill that oh.

Speaker 2 (02:01:43):
Yeah, he's Ryan O'Neill to the power of Neil, right exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:01:47):
It's like I can't imagine, you know, but but you're right,
like there is a little bit of like the kind
of the foggy hasting, but it's it's so Ryan O'Neill
that it's like it's hard for me to be like, oh,
I'm Ryan O'Neill eska, you know. And again, the character
in the book is like thirty seven, and I mean
Ryan O'Neil he was born forty one, so he's like
in his late forties. He's about good ten to fifteen

(02:02:07):
years older than the character in the book, and that
also kind of changes things a bit because again, Deborah Stipe,
she's younger, and so I think the main character is
probably closer to Debora Stype. They were kind of the
same age in the book more, whereas in this you know,
Ryan o'neils like an older guy dating this younger woman,
and all of it creates a unique kind of feel
to the movie. But it's one of those things where

(02:02:28):
it's almost like, oh, I can get Ryan O'Neil. I'm
gonna have him play the league, even if he's sto older.

Speaker 2 (02:02:32):
I think although he is in his forties, I think
he especially considering.

Speaker 3 (02:02:37):
The characters might be like ravaged by boos and drugs.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
I think that he he plays maybe like forty forty one,
forty two maybe, so he's not so I think he's
playing it like early forties, late thirties, and I can
almost buy that. And it's not like Debra Stipe. Like
Debra Stype looks like a woman. She doesn't look like
a teenager. No, no, she looks like a fully. What

(02:03:02):
I mean is when you see them next to each other,
it's not, you know, an older predator type relationship, right, Yes,
If anything, she has the bulls.

Speaker 4 (02:03:12):
Not him, right, right, exactly. Yeah, No, that's a good
point too, Yeah yeah. I mean, what other quick thing
too about this? So I mentioned that movie Armies or
that book Armies of the Night. He won the Pulitzer
for that. I'd forgotten that, And he won the Razzie
as director for this movie. So he's the only person
as a distinction of winning a Pulletzer and a Razzie. Now,

(02:03:32):
I don't think he did like halle Berry when she
won the Razzie for Catwoman, and she brought her monsters
ball Oscar to the podium when she accepted the award.
I almost think in Mailer's case, I don't know how
he responded winning a Razzie, but I almost kind of
think in his case it you know, it probably was
boor like. He probably was more accepting of it or
thought it was more fun, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:03:53):
Yeah. I mean, look, and again, we live in a
world where no one will ever give wings Houser an
acting award, and that right there is reason enough to
cast all acting awards into suspicion, you know what I mean.
There's donald Pleasance doesn't have an Oscar. And again I'm
not just saying this because I'm fans of their acting.

(02:04:13):
I'm saying this because they are phenomenally talented yet wildly
different actors that if we just continue to award the
same old stuff, then you know, what are we doing here?

Speaker 3 (02:04:29):
It's it's it's again.

Speaker 2 (02:04:33):
It's like, I think we've done the comparison, but like
it's the modern comparison is Nicholas Cage.

Speaker 3 (02:04:38):
And there are either people who watch.

Speaker 2 (02:04:40):
Nicholas Cage because Nicholas Cage does a wild bit in
this movie, and I want some wild Cage to happen.
A lot of people are just sitting around being like, oh,
isn't it funny when he shouts a lion? Right, there's
those people and whatever, be go, you know, go with love.
It's fine, whatever if that's if that's your bag, baby,
what Nick Cage stuff? Ironically, but I like to watch

(02:05:03):
Nick Cavee stuff, Nick Cage stuff and kind of like
see what he was going for. And you know, I
don't know whether it was with you that I was
talking about, like Long Legs and Arcadian, but those are
those two movies came out this year or last year
rather and.

Speaker 3 (02:05:20):
Couldn't be more different.

Speaker 2 (02:05:22):
And my feeling was that in Long Legs he swung
and missed and derailed the movie and it should have
just been someone else, because I think I think there
was a better movie in there, and I think he
kind of somewhat spoilt it. Although there is a certain detached,
ironic joy about watching Cage do a sort of weird

(02:05:42):
Johnny Depp Michael Jackson style performance while also trying to
be Buffalo Bill from Silons, the Lambs and everything else. Anyway,
there's that, and then there's Arcadian, where he plays it
absolutely straight, but I think gives an emotional, powerful performance
in way that only someone who swings and misses but

(02:06:04):
also sometimes swings and hits can achieve. And I think
there's an emotional depth to a performance in Arcadian that
I have not seen, even amongst the DiCaprio's or whatever
of the world who are supposed to be the new
de Niro's.

Speaker 3 (02:06:20):
I don't see it in.

Speaker 2 (02:06:22):
The same way that I see it in Nick Cage,
or I see it in a performance by someone like
wings House. I truly believe that, And people can call
me daft, call me stupid, but like you know, I
think I think John Candy is a much better actor
than I don't know, Harvey Kitel, I really do. I

(02:06:42):
think he's a much better actor than Harvey Kytel because
Harvey Kaitel could never play Harry Crumb. He just couldn't.
But you're never gonna give John Candy. No one ever
gave John Candy an Oscar, so immediately it calls into
question acting Oscars or acting Golden Globes or acting anything.
That's that's why I'm not doing it anymore.

Speaker 4 (02:07:04):
No, you make a great point, because I mean Nicholas
Cage offsly. I mean he did win the Oscar, which
I mean that's one of my favorite performances, you know, leaving.

Speaker 2 (02:07:11):
Las Vegas, Las Vegas, right, Yes, No, he did, no,
and I was well comparing him for his wild tonal
shifts that I was for his awards.

Speaker 4 (02:07:19):
But yes, no, but I do, I but I know,
but I do. With with Nicholas Cage, He's one that
I love. I just love watching him and stuff. And
like you said, I love seeing him take swings and
whether he takes the swings and misses or he hits
with the direct to video stuff, you get these really
fascinating ones, like there's this movie Frozen Ground he did
with Judge Husak right that that interrogation scene with the

(02:07:43):
two of them, it, I mean, it's just it's kind
of thing that in the nineties, it would have been
the kind of thing that would have been a TNT
new classic that we would have been seeing over and
over again. But because it's a two thousands or twenty
tens DTV movie, it's nobody talks about it. Nobody, you know,
think about these these two. But yeah, I mean, yeah,
Nicholas CAJ mean Pig is another one that it's just

(02:08:05):
like I just love. Yeah, that movie just did get
you know, And so yeah, Nicholas Cage is someone that
I always love. But yeah, it's not an ironic love
of Nicholas Case. I mean, I love Ghostwriter, Spirit of Vengeance.
That's one of my favorite comic book movies, and I
you know, and I don't love it ironically. I enjoy
watching that movie, and a big part of it is
because of Nicholas Cage.

Speaker 2 (02:08:24):
I liked that ghost one, Pay the Ghost whatever when
his Sun goes to missing, I like that one.

Speaker 3 (02:08:32):
As I said, I loved that.

Speaker 2 (02:08:32):
Kadian thought Long Legs was great, but wasn't sure about
Cage in it. The unbearable way of massive talent was
like a good fun rump. It wasn't quite the celebration
of Cage that I wanted it to be. I don't
think they necessarily had the budget in the way that
they wanted to, but it had some nice stuff in it.

(02:08:53):
I Yeah, I think Cage has been doing some great stuff.
And I think that the more that I explore, you know,
these acts like Michael Moriarty or Wingshauser or Donald Pleasants
or Kurt Russell, these kind of very definitive actors who
have bodies of work that I'm still working my way
through and still discovering films in it's you know, it's

(02:09:17):
a joy and it's it's it's all I can do
to recommend it to others. All Right, So here's a
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(02:09:39):
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(02:10:01):
was the wonderful tough Guys Don't Dance. And I'm sorry
if people tuned in to listen to us rip on it,
but uh, I feel like we both got some joy
from it.

Speaker 4 (02:10:10):
Actually, yes, this happens a lot. I remember this movie
called Altitude, that Dolph Wonder movie that I did with
Mitch from the video Vacuum. We talked about it and
I think everybody was looking for us to kill it,
and the comments were getting We're like, I don't know
if we saw the same movie, and I'm like, well,
we you know, we had fun time with it, was it?
It was kind of deal.

Speaker 2 (02:10:30):
I also don't want to be accused of kind of
getting serious as I get older, either, But I so
I want to claify, like, I know it's not a
great movie, but I loved it for what it is.

Speaker 3 (02:10:41):
And is it funny? Yes, it's fucking hilarious.

Speaker 2 (02:10:45):
But is it funny in a oh I am better
than it ironic way? Or is it funny because they
were genuinely trying to make a way and funny movie.

Speaker 3 (02:10:54):
I think the second one.

Speaker 4 (02:10:55):
Yeah, No, I agree, I think again, sometimes I think
this is the thing. It was kind of you know,
people are going back and forth about movies like Madam
Webb and stuff, and I think sometimes you just have
to have Yeah, yeah, I think sometimes you just have
to have a good time. Like if you enjoy yourself

(02:11:16):
with the movies, sometimes that's all that counts. And I
don't think we we we think about that enough. I
mean I just recently saw that that No s Faratu
movie in the theater, and that was it was. It
was good. It was you know, I didn't hate it.
But you know, if you're doing the Pepsi challenge, like
which I would rather spend because it's roughly the same
lengths as Tough Guys. Okay, it's they're both about two hours.

(02:11:37):
I think if you're going to ask me my druthers
on which I'd rather see in the theater, it go
through the whole process of like buying the ticket, going
to the you know all that Tough Guys Don't Dance
is probably more my speed. That's more of what.

Speaker 2 (02:11:48):
I And Yeah, it's funny because there were three blockbusters
released last year that I unabashedly loved in a way
that felt very eighties or nineties in a way where
it was like, it's okay to like big tent pole pictures.
You don't have to be sniffy about them. And they

(02:12:11):
were all ridiculous in their own way. They were all
goofy and silly in their own way. But it was Kong,
Godzilla times Kong, Frozen Empire. I loved The Ghostbusters, which
I think was also Frozen Empire. I think there was
like several Frozen Empires this year, the Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.

Speaker 3 (02:12:31):
I loved that as well.

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):
I mean, did pull the Wolverine, but kind of everyone
loved that, so I mean, and again, I didn't love.

Speaker 3 (02:12:38):
It because it's a great movie.

Speaker 2 (02:12:39):
I loved it because it's a comedy, and a gory,
sweary comedy at that. We haven't had an R rated
comedy in years, so it was like a breath of
fresh air. But the third one was Peedle Juice Peeple Juice,
which a lot of people shout on, but I've subsequently
bought the blu ray and watched it a second time,
and I loved it just as much. It had Michael

(02:13:02):
Keaton's Beetle Juice. They were ramping around both Earth and Hell.
They were doing you know, there's a bunch of jokes,
bunch of cameos, but like, I don't know what people expected,
like you know what I mean. It's not like people
are like, well if If Burton, who has made nothing
but like wank for the last fifteen years. Right, I

(02:13:24):
don't rate any of his more recent films. But what
did they think he was gonna do? You know what
I mean? Like everyone watched it as why is this
not some sort of sering, dramatic epic, And I'm like,
They're like, why is it so confused? Why did none
of the characters really have a motivation? I'm like, have
you seen the original Beetle Juice?

Speaker 4 (02:13:45):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:13:46):
Like do you know what the original one is? Like?
You know?

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
But yeah, no, I loved it unabashedly.

Speaker 4 (02:13:51):
Sometimes I think with these, with the legacy sequels, it's
just a matter of like, again, does it does it
sort of tickle that interest in?

Speaker 2 (02:14:00):
You know? I mean?

Speaker 4 (02:14:00):
I think axel f was one.

Speaker 2 (02:14:01):
That I another one It's in my top. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:14:05):
I didn't think I was going to like it, but
I was watching the other three Beverly Hills cop for
you know, for the podcast, and I thought, Okay, we'll
watch the fourth one, because I usually don't do the
legacy sequels just because I just don't, you know, I
don't really have any interest in them, but I get
why people watch them. But I watched axel F and
I was like, okay, this was I had fun with this.
So there are parts of it I didn't like. I
didn't like parts of the more modern music. I don't

(02:14:27):
need little nas X in my my my axl F movie.
But you know, in the fact that they can't be
called Beverly Hills cop Ford has to be called axel F,
just like Beetlejuice Beetle Juice. It can't be called Beatle
Juice two. It has to be you know, like that
whole thing for we can't use numbers for sequels, but
it count beyond all that kind of stuff. Again, it's
just this thing where you sit in the theater, you

(02:14:49):
sit at home, and you watch it, and it's like,
did I enjoy myself for that two hours?

Speaker 2 (02:14:54):
And then the lead up to watching it, I watched
the Beverly Hills cop trilogy and even found peace with
the third one. I even found a way to watch
the third one. And we've talked about this before, but
if you watch it as a Landis film and not
as a Beverly Hills Cup film, and you like Landis
and I'm not getting into the whole fucking well, Landis

(02:15:14):
is problematic because X like, fuck off, fuck off. Are
you really willing to throw Animal House and Blue and
Blues Brothers and American Wellolf of London or whatever? Are
you really willing to throw those shit in the fire? No,
so shut up. I'm allowed to like fucking other John
Landis movies. And Beverly Hills Cup three was one where

(02:15:36):
I'm like, oh, this is a Landis, it's a cartoon.
It's like, you know, like Landis and Joe Dante are
very similar. I'm always gonna kind of slightly prefer Dante,
but in general they kind of walk the same path
of sort of making everything a little bit like a
Warner Brothers cartoon. And Beverly Hills Cup three is just
the Warner Brothers cartoon version of Beverly Hills Cup and

(02:15:59):
most people I want to see that, so I totally
fucking get it.

Speaker 3 (02:16:02):
But I quite enjoyed it.

Speaker 4 (02:16:04):
Well, because the thing I think that hurts Beverly Hills
Cop three is that Eddie Murphy didn't really want to
make it, you know, like he wanted to make more
serious movies. He was disappointed overall at the first one
was such a hit because he thought he was gonna
be making a serious, like action movie, and then he
makes it. It's more of a you know, the script
and everything, it's more of a comedy. But you know,

(02:16:25):
he wanted to be like known as like a serious actor,
and the parts just weren't really working for him as
a serious actor. And he had to do Beverly Hills
Cop three, and I guess he came into it Atlantis
couldn't get the funny out of him, and so it's
like it because of that, it suffers, I think. But
to your point, I also didn't like find myself watching

(02:16:49):
that and going like, god, this is like a waste
of an hour and forty five minutes, Like I don't
you know, it's it's not like I think, maybe because
we watch so many like low budget direct to video
things that aren't good, right, they just, you know, objectively,
are bad movies that when people refer to like big
screen movies as bad in that way. And sure, some

(02:17:11):
of them get there, some of them definitely get there.
But I think a lot of times people talk about
movies in this way that's like they I don't know,
I don't know how to explain it, but it's like
like what they think of as a bad movie to
us is probably something that's just a fun time.

Speaker 2 (02:17:27):
I mean my thing with the the Legacy sequels or
you know, Ghostbusters, or even the things like the American
Godzilla and In Kong, because I know there's a ton
of people out there who are like, well, Godzilla minus
one is amazing, but none of the American Godzilla films
are any good at all, And I'm like, you're off
your fucking nut the American Godzilla and King Kong movies. Ah,

(02:17:49):
if you've seen any of the seventies or eighties Godzilla
King Kong Japanese made apparently authentic movies, they are every
bit as goofy, wild, weird, wonderful at ignoring the human
being characters, and far more focusing on the monster fights,
which is every Godzilla mash up movie, whether it was

(02:18:12):
made in Japan in nineteen seventies with a dude in
a suit, or whether it's a big budget American Hollywood movie.
And I'm sorry, like, just because you like to go
back and watch the Japanese Godzillas. I'm going to presume
to kind of laugh, I suppose at some of the effects,
but you're going to watch this one and be all sniffy.

(02:18:35):
I I just don't know what to tell you. Like
Godzilla times Kung was a fucking romp. It was a
rump from start to finish. It was a fun stupid
like right down to the oh, Godzilla hurts his arm.
And here's this Bill Murray sam Rockwell type played by
Dan and I forget his last name, but he's a

(02:18:57):
British actor. But he's playing very much like if you
dropped Bill Murray from meat Balls or Sam Rockwell from
the Way way Back into a Godzilla movie. The Dan Stevens.
That's what Dan Stevens is playing in god and it's
just a right down to the fact that Dan Stevens's
character has like a massive arm brace.

Speaker 3 (02:19:20):
Already built for Kong.

Speaker 2 (02:19:22):
Oh, well, we'll just get that Kong sized arm brace
we have lying around that we built just in case
this gigantic ape ever breaks a body part. Like it's
that level stupid, but it's enjoyable because I want to
suspend this belief. I want to believe that Kong is
this like benevolent king fighter who's gonna help the earth,

(02:19:43):
and that Godzilla's gonna team up with him, and that
they're gonna go and fight big monsters and that he's
gonna have a bionic arm and whatever. Like I love
all that shit. Like it's goofy and weird and stupid.
It's well, i like the Fast and Furious franchise because
I'm not afraid to just be stupid, and sometimes I
just want stupid, and it's fine to just one stupid,

(02:20:03):
but it doesn't make it a bad movie. It's like,
people have to understand when I criticize film. And I
think a lot of people are like, well, wait, you
like the Godzella movies and the Fast and Furious, but
you criticize Hack Snyder. And I'm like, yes, because when
Hack Snyder sits down and make a comic book movie,
he tries to make it the most serious Christopher Nolan
scratchy head thinky blah blah blah blah blah, while also

(02:20:28):
having you know, ridiculously graphic sex scenes and little jokes
about this and jokes about that and whatever. I'm like, Hack,
just like, just pick pick your lane. If you're making
a goofy fun movie, make a goofy fun movie. But
I'm sorry, in a goofy fun movie, you don't get
to have long, ponderous, you know, barely lit, gray, overly

(02:20:52):
cgi scenes where like apparently super important things are happening
when really it's just a bunch of people running around
in tights like you.

Speaker 3 (02:20:59):
Just it's It's the reason.

Speaker 2 (02:21:02):
Why I attack someone like hack Snyder is because he doesn't.
He fundamentally doesn't know how to make a good movie.

Speaker 3 (02:21:08):
He just doesn't.

Speaker 2 (02:21:09):
He doesn't know how to begin a story. He doesn't
know how to end a story. He doesn't how to
tell a story. He doesn't know why characters do, why
characters are meant to be doing. He changes characters so
that they do stuff just to fit his ridiculous ideas
about stuff. He doesn't understand any of the characters in
the Justice League, or or why they are beloved for
the reasons that they're beloved.

Speaker 3 (02:21:29):
He just doesn't. But and while his movie might you
might claim.

Speaker 2 (02:21:33):
Has all the substance in the world, and Deadpool of
Wolverine has zero substance, Deadpool of Wolverine is a better
comic book movie that's more true to the comic books
and more true to the general bizarre law that pervades
all of Marvel's literature. Then the Justice League is to
d C stuff, and this eradication of a sense of

(02:21:54):
humor from like what a what are literally comic book
movies is you know, baffling to me and the Nolan's
and the hacks Niders of the world. I will attack
because you, Christopher Nolan, you made a three hour plus
Batman movie. Just stop it, just stop it. Nothing happens

(02:22:15):
in that film for hours, hours and hours and hours,
and then you're gonna have Tom Hardy walking.

Speaker 4 (02:22:21):
Around talking long short conery.

Speaker 3 (02:22:24):
And you're like, what is going on?

Speaker 2 (02:22:27):
Like it's either a comic book movie or it's a
three hour dirgy, slow moving piece of nonsense. They cannot.
I like story. I like filmmakers. You can tell a story,
and you know, tough guys don't dance as convoluted as
that fucking story is. By the end of it, I
am satisfied that I know that everything has been tied up.

Speaker 4 (02:22:49):
Yeah, I mean, the only you know, for Christopher Nolan stuff,
probably the best thing that I've seen from him is
just not inception as a movie, but just Joseph Jordan
Levin in a suit and Joseph Gordon Levin in a
suit works, you know, or wattson Abby. I can't think
of Ken Watson Abby. I think Grace is in that movie.

(02:23:10):
If I have the name right, maybe I probably shouldn't
say the Day. I can't if I'm not remembering it.
But like, like the I remember everybody's talking about The
Dark Knight and like, oh, The Dark Knight is great.
It's the best comical movie ever. You've got to see it.
And one of my friends was like, I don't think
you're gonna like it because I didn't really care for it.
And I was like, really, you, like everybody else is
saying it's the greatest thing ever. You're you don't think

(02:23:31):
I'm gonna like It's like I'll tell you I watched it.
I didn't really care for it, and I watched it
and I was like, yeah, I mean, like, I love
the performance from Heath Ledger, but the Oscar winning performance
was the year before and Broke Back Mountain, and Hollywood
that time was like, we can't give somebody playing a
gay character, you know, We'll do it for Sean Penn
later because we like Sean Penn better.

Speaker 2 (02:23:51):
But I was kind of like, oh, Sean Blam was
playing a real person.

Speaker 4 (02:23:54):
Right exactly, that's true too, That's good. Yeah, but it
was like, oh, we screwed up because now Heath Ledgers,
and you know, we thought he's gonna have this whole career.
We could finally, we could give him an oscar way
down the road. It's like, okay, because I really think
the best supporting actor for that year was Tom Cruise
in Tropic Thunder that performance, which is ridiculous. But I

(02:24:15):
liked Heath Ledger's performance. I think he did a really
amazing job.

Speaker 2 (02:24:18):
But it's also not again it's odd, and again everyone
loves Heath Ledger out of nowhere. I'm like, I bet
they can't name more than two of his films. But
suddenly everyone fucking adores Heath Ledger, And I'm like, I
really that, not that I disked, He's like, he loved
it was absolutely fine, but like him suddenly becoming this

(02:24:39):
like godlike fucking actor because he does a Tom Waits
impression and a Jack's Skeleton impression for the whole of
The Dark Knight. Yeah, is it a fun performance? Sure
is it a deeply layered, complex, weird, realistic performance. No,
not at all, nor does it need to be because it's

(02:25:00):
Batman and the Joker. But for everyone to suddenly be like,
oh my god, did you see what He's Ledger did?
It's like did you see what Jim Carrey did as
the rid Ler? Like right, like, what are you talking about?
Like it's Jeff Cools, it's a anyway, Yeah, no, I yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:25:17):
It's it's and it's like kind of that thing where
it's like like James Gunn now taking over DC is
gonna be really interesting because I haven't seen the third
Guardians of the Galaxy, but I saw the first two.
And the fact that he was able to make fun,
engaging movies out of a comic book that in Marvel
that was just I remember as a kid when that
when Guardians of the Galaxy was on the shelf, that

(02:25:38):
was like kind of the crap that like would be
like left over on the the you know, nobody was
collecting Guardians of the Galaxy, nobody wanted that comic. And
the fact that he's turned it into he turned it
into their one of the probably like after the Iron
Man ones, their biggest grossing kind of solo or like
you know, non Avengers movies. It's gonna be interesting to

(02:25:59):
see what he does with Superman and what he does
with these other characters. I'm really curious to see what
happens here.

Speaker 2 (02:26:05):
Yeah, it's like everyone didn't like the Taiker Watti Thor movies.

Speaker 3 (02:26:08):
I think they're the best ones.

Speaker 4 (02:26:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:26:11):
Iron Man three is my favorite Marvel movie. And it
was like, what the one where he's not iron Man
very much? I'm like, yeah, it's my favorite one because
he's not Iron Man. He has to be inventive and creative.
And there's a storyline, and there's a storyline that talks
about the nature of being a superhero, and it actually
understands the whole problematic but also a popular reason for superheroes,

(02:26:35):
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It actually has wit
and intelligence and understanding. And it's filmic in the way
that it tells its story and it peppers its character.
It's actors with renowned character actors who give great performances
and little snippets, and it's a it's a joy to watch,
and it's weird and funny and odd and yeah and yeah,

(02:26:56):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (02:26:57):
Well. It's also it's also rare for a part three
to be even halfway decent, right, Like Part three's in
series almost never work. I mean, you know, we were
just talking about the Beverly Hills cop movies. I think
that's probably the weakest of the bunch. Godfather three, I mean,
I could go on Superman three, like you know they

(02:27:17):
they part three's. I mean, I guess Batman Forever is
probably the closest to like a decent Part three because
they're just like they were, just like, Okay, we don't
have Tim Burton here, let's just do the best weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:27:27):
I think we're also missing out on Police Academy three,
Back in Training.

Speaker 4 (02:27:33):
It's a classic, the classic.

Speaker 2 (02:27:35):
There isn't a There isn't a bad Police Academy movie
until seven.

Speaker 3 (02:27:40):
There is a six is there?

Speaker 2 (02:27:42):
But the first five I'm sorry again, people are idiots.
The first five Police Academy movies are classics, the fine one.
They are the Fast and Furious franchise of the eighties.
They are because every every episode, every film, the stunts
get more ridiculu.

Speaker 3 (02:28:00):
So they go from having.

Speaker 2 (02:28:01):
Like what are they called the speed bikes water speed bikes?

Speaker 4 (02:28:07):
What are they scooters are the jet skis.

Speaker 2 (02:28:11):
They go from having like jet skis to having like
hot air balloons and planes. Like they every movie like
they go from having cars to jet skis to hot
air balloons and planes, and like every single episode gets
more and more stunt heavy and more and more ridiculous
that this scrappy band of ned do wells would be

(02:28:33):
able to do any of this stuff, but they do.

Speaker 3 (02:28:35):
And it's the same with the Fast and Furious franchise.

Speaker 2 (02:28:37):
And by the time you get to number nine, you
know you've got them sling shoting around the sun.

Speaker 4 (02:28:42):
Or whatever exactly exactly well, you know that's a yeah,
I mean Fast and Furious. Like that's another one where
it's like, oh, part three there, it's it's kind of dying, right,
It's like a bad part three. And then Part four like,
like I guess Vin Diesel he had like other movies
mapped out and they were like, let's just see how
you do with part four first before we start doing
anything else. And it was I think that was the

(02:29:03):
movie that like he was kind of on the fed
on the border of DTV and continuing to have a
big screen career if number four doesn't work out, you know,
he's probably doing directive video stuff. So, but you know
somebody I didn't even think about who's done some great
part three's. Actually it's Don the Dragon Wilson, which you
know we talked about Blood Fist three, which beyond the

(02:29:24):
fact that you've got the pedophile who's supposed to be
a sympathetic character, everything else in that movie is fantastic, right,
which it's quite quite a besides. But then also Ring
of Fire three, which involves you know, him hanging off
of a building, off the top of a hospital, shooting
an old man wielding an uzi and blowing up his helicopter,
and then motorcycles driving on the floor of the hospital

(02:29:47):
and having to fight them another fit. So so, Donald
Dragon Wilson, if you need a part three to work,
maybe that's the rule, is bringing down the Dragon Wilson.

Speaker 2 (02:29:55):
And you see what you've done that, Yeah, you see
how you've seemingly seamlessly, seamlessly taken us from movies need
to be more fun to Part three's aren't usually that great,
except a part three that Don the Dragon Wilson did
four PM Entertainment, which leads perfectly into tonight's VHS choice,

(02:30:21):
which is Hologram Man by PM Entertainment, the p of
PM Entertainment, Richard Peppin being at the helm of this
sci fi explosion masterpiece, Matt, talk to us, talk to
us about Hologram Man and when you first saw it,
and you're it's place for you in the PM pantheon.

Speaker 4 (02:30:44):
So this is this is actually my number four PM film.
So I've got this behind Zero Tolerance, the Sweeper. I
don't why I couldn't think of the sweeper there, you know,
But and also Recoil, So.

Speaker 2 (02:30:57):
This is how you recall above Rage.

Speaker 4 (02:31:00):
Yeah, so a lot of people kind of go the
other way around Rage. First, Yeah, Rages in my top ten,
so it's definitely there, and then Ryot's kind of out
just outside the top ten of this. But yeah, a
lot of people go the other way. I mean, there's
some stuff in Rage that like I can't argue, Like
if you think Rage is better than Record, I can't,
you know. I guess for me it's that opening sequence,

(02:31:22):
which is so ridiculous. And then yeah, I don't know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:31:28):
Last Man Standing where you put Zero Tolerance. I know
they're very similar films, but I might have to go
with the wind cut over right.

Speaker 4 (02:31:39):
And he rounds out my top five, so that one's
like right below Hologram Man. Yeah. I think part of
the Zero Tolerance is the fact that Mick Fleetwood gets
one between the eyes. That's just.

Speaker 3 (02:31:51):
Right, well there is that.

Speaker 2 (02:31:52):
The The casino scene in Zero Tolerance is just a delight.
In fact, the Vegas set in general is used very well.

Speaker 4 (02:32:02):
Yes, yeah, second only to Living Living to Die? Right,
was that the one that wigs Houser did in Vegas? Yes, yeah,
that's that's probably the one that I have my top
ten that most people wouldn't have, but you might probably.

Speaker 3 (02:32:15):
Oh I would, Yes, I mean I would definitely have.

Speaker 2 (02:32:18):
I don't know whether it be Living to Die or
the Art of Dying it would be different or Killer's Edge,
Oh yes, yeah, which is equally fantastic. Killer's Edge is
probably in my top five or top ten, with Art
of Dying is in the top ten, I think, Yes,
what was the other one?

Speaker 4 (02:32:37):
To Die or Living to Die?

Speaker 2 (02:32:40):
Living to Die is probably you're right, that's probably the one.
That's the one with the milk glove scene and the rabbit.

Speaker 4 (02:32:46):
Or no, that's Art of Dying.

Speaker 2 (02:32:48):
Oh, that's Art of Dying.

Speaker 4 (02:32:49):
Yeah, So Living to Die?

Speaker 2 (02:32:50):
Is that? So Living to Die is when he goes
to play Yeah, when he goes to play cards with
the guy, and it may as well be the dogs
playing poker scene exactly. And then when out of no
place there's like jazz experimental dancing, and yes, that is
a phenomenal movie.

Speaker 4 (02:33:08):
There's a character he's playing and he keeps saying, somebody's
trying to put the bite on mitten. Which guy name
is Minten? But you may. And hockey, they have a
player on their team named Mitton. And when I watch
their games on ESPN plus, every time they say the
guy's name, you know, oh, up the ice by Mitten,
I'm like, up, somebody's putting the bite on Mitten.

Speaker 2 (02:33:30):
That's amazing. No, you have to say put the bite
on mitten. Oh yeah, that's where he has his old
friend who's the mobster, while he's making a very aggressive sandwich.

Speaker 3 (02:33:44):
Oh that is a joy, Yes, that is a joy.

Speaker 2 (02:33:47):
So PM entertainment, Yes, Hologram Man PM entertainment clearly a
favorite of yours. So give us a loadown what happens
in Hologram Man.

Speaker 4 (02:33:56):
So, hologramm Man, so we get I mean the movie
open with one of the greatest scenes ever in a
PM flick. It takes place in the future, and so
you've got cops that are just kind of as there's
a shootout between cops and baddies. Also this idea again,
PM likes to do this whole idea that LA is
going to be just completely crime right into the future
and it's just gonna be gangs and stuff, and Joe

(02:34:19):
Lara is there. So Joe Laura when it comes to
your PM stars, he's like kind of a few notches
down and people might know him recently because he married
a woman who ran a cult in Tennessee named Gwenn Shamblin.
And it's possible, yes, he married this woman that ran
so this woman started a cult about essentially like using

(02:34:40):
religion to lose weight. But I mean, I mean just
really like, I mean, it's as bad as culty kind
of stuff as you can imagine. It's like, Oh, and
apparently Joe Laara essentially like kind of wormed his way
in with her because she was getting all this money
from her cult and he was trying to use her
money to fund his country music career. But he also

(02:35:01):
claimed that he was a crack there's.

Speaker 3 (02:35:02):
So much Americana just in that sentence. Anyway, Yeah, carry on.

Speaker 4 (02:35:06):
But apparently so my wife and I we watched the
bio pic on this woman that was had Jennifer Gray
playing Gwen Shamblin. And the way that they they.

Speaker 2 (02:35:15):
They did a movie of the week about it or whatever, right,
because because.

Speaker 4 (02:35:18):
They died in a plane crash, and the way that
Lara did, Laura did as well. Yeah, and the way
that they depict the dying and the plane crash, they
made it sound like Joe. Laura was like, I can
fly a plane. Sure, I'm a I'm a pilot. And
he doesn't do a good job flying the plane and
they all die. Yeah, Oh my.

Speaker 2 (02:35:37):
God, I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (02:35:38):
Yeah, so this is yeah, so this is this is Joel.
I mean, he's apparently, you know, when he couldn't get
movies anymore. He kind of made mosy like they made
it sound like he was like a handyman who was
like fixing stuff on the compound of the of the
coult and then kind of knew that this woman, Gwen,
Sheandla had a thing for him, and he essentially kind

(02:35:58):
of become you know, you know, you don't have to
send me.

Speaker 2 (02:36:02):
The name of that movie. Yes, my wife ill.

Speaker 4 (02:36:05):
Yeah, I don't even know who the actors it plays him,
but I mean when you go on, I don't know
if if she still has her YouTube videos up, Like
she posted this video of them getting engaged, and my
wife showed me the video of them getting engaged because
she she would follow these fundamentalists like the twelve Kids
or nineteen Kids account or whatever. She always got a
kick out of all of them. So she's like, watch
this video of this this crazy Gwinn Shamblin woman like

(02:36:26):
who has a cult and everything. And I'm like, that's
Joe Laura And she's like, who, Who's Joel. Laura was like, no,
he does these directed video movies that I reviewed my site.
And she's like, no, there's no way that that's him.
I was like, yeah that is and yeah, so so
he is.

Speaker 2 (02:36:41):
Yeah, he joined he joined a weight loss car, so
he's an old he's an ex straight to video action
style who joined a weight loss car.

Speaker 4 (02:36:51):
Well, so he didn't join the cult.

Speaker 5 (02:36:53):
He essentially he wormed into the bed of a woman
who ran a religious white lost colt in order to
help fund his country in Western film career.

Speaker 2 (02:37:04):
Country with yes and music career. That is the most
like all American thing. Yeah, that has ever been.

Speaker 4 (02:37:12):
It's amazing. And they died because he's according to the movie,
so they died in the plane crash. But according to
the movie, it's because he was flying the plane and
he wasn't qualified to fly the plane. But he told
her so even better, right, even better.

Speaker 2 (02:37:27):
At the end, so Averice and Ego just took took
them down. He was like, listen, I once took out
the hologram man. Well you didn't really choke, no, but
I once took out the hologram man who was Evan Lurie,
and so I can fly a plane. And then and
then that ended that well look a sad end to
Joe Lara, but also somewhat comical one. So let's just

(02:37:50):
move on.

Speaker 4 (02:37:51):
Well, so, so, so he's trying to shoot these guys
and then suddenly John Amos flies in in a car
with spikes in the front and uh, and he's got
a gun that has explosive tip bullets, which Laura is like, hey,
those aren't regulation, but it's John Amos.

Speaker 2 (02:38:07):
Now it's when they're talking to the governor, he says,
like this law showing me a little notebook because you know,
like in Hot Fuzz or whatever, but like the police
are meant to take notes in their notebook, and that's
how they're able to do their job and present a
accurate depiction of what happened in court. John Amos, he
doesn't carry no notebook that flies by the seat of

(02:38:29):
his wide pants exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:38:32):
And then yeah, at the same time, Evan Laurie, who
also wrote and directed, He's in a ton of these,
he said, like maybe like fifteen or twenty these. He
also did a movie called Guns and Lipstick that I
was telling you about, and I've got to find my
DVD copy of It's a wings Houser movie. But he
plays is it Jerry Hall in the movie or Sally Kirkle.
I think Sally Kirkle. He plays her boy toy in that.

(02:38:53):
But this is his pet project, which again PM was
kind of like Cannon with that, like if you had
a pet project, they'd let you make it.

Speaker 2 (02:39:00):
Yeah, And if there's anything that's sort of I would
be critical with about this movie is that because the
lead bad guy wrote the film and and sort of
produced the film and shout the movie in is Joe
Joe Lara. At no point in this movie, At no
point is efficient strong, good at fighting, good at driving,

(02:39:27):
good at shooting, good at he Joe Lara fails every
single step of the way. The only person who's good
at anything is Evan Lurie playing the character. And if
ever there was a writer's ego, it's calling your character's
name Slash Gallagher. Yes, I'm Evan Lurie and I'm playing

(02:39:49):
Slash Gallagher, which, which is to me, just sounds like
piss prop comic because it's like in England we say
go for a slash mean and go for a pisshu
and Gallagher is of course the guy who hits water
melons with a hammer. So I just think pissed prop
comic when I think Slash Gallagher. He thought, though it

(02:40:10):
sounded hard as nails.

Speaker 4 (02:40:12):
Exactly exactly. So so yeah, so he you know, he
has this big thing where he takes a bus hostage
and all this stuff and ends up with a standoff
between Gallagher and you know, ev Laurie and John Amos
and Joe Laura. He kills John Amos, but he's arrested
and in the future they have this new program where

(02:40:32):
they turn.

Speaker 2 (02:40:32):
You into He also kills the governor.

Speaker 4 (02:40:36):
That's right, he kills the governor. That's right, kills the governor,
and then he kills John Amos, and then he gets
turned to a hologram by the jerk from Animal House.

Speaker 2 (02:40:46):
Gets turned into a hologram turns what happens in this movie, yep.

Speaker 4 (02:40:50):
And then apparently while you're a hologram, you get reprogrammed
as a human and then they can turn you back
from a hologram into a person. But what happens is
Larry of Larry, Daryl and Darryl theme from Newhart. He's
working with Joe Campanella and Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:41:08):
The character actors in this is insane. I mean, the
level of recognizable faces is kind of incredible. You've got
You've got Michael Nuri, who people will know from pretty
much every TV show and the film Flashdance. You've got
William Sanderson that obviously people will know from Blade Runner

(02:41:31):
and Last Man Standing and the Deadwood TV series and
various other things like that. You've got Nicholas Worth, who
I know mainly from Darkman but is also in Don't
Answer the Phone, which is like an early slasher and
No Way Out as well. What's incredible is that is

(02:41:55):
that Nicholas Worth is the only actor, dare I say
that has been in two movies that pose it that
if you don't have much of a like face and
or body, you can just put on plastic skin and pretend.

Speaker 3 (02:42:10):
To be anyone you want to be.

Speaker 2 (02:42:12):
Because that's the premise of dark Man, and it's the
premise of Hologram.

Speaker 4 (02:42:16):
Man, right exactly exactly, because yeah, what happens is is
that he's going up. And so the other thing is
that a corporation has taken over the government in law
and so this James Dowton from.

Speaker 3 (02:42:29):
An animal house and spies like us.

Speaker 4 (02:42:32):
Spies like us. Yeah. Also, he was in the shark
Jump episode of Happy Days. He yes, So I believe
he was at least he was. I think it was.
That was a three part episode when they were out
in la and I think he was at least, you know,
two of the three parts.

Speaker 2 (02:42:47):
So yeah, yeah, So he's also in Paul Bartel's Mortuary Academy,
and he was in the original TV series V only
one episode. But but no, I mean he's he's one
of those guys. He stopped acting shortly after this. Did
one cameo in Sorority Boys from two thousand and two. Uh,

(02:43:09):
no doubt a nod to his Animal House character. But
apart from that has old but to quit the acting life.

Speaker 4 (02:43:18):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and and and then yeah, we
mentioned Joe Campanella. Derek McGrath, who plays this sort of
this interesting like secretary character within the company. He you know,
he did sitcoms things like that and in in in
the eighties. But I know of him from the blood
Sport for the Dark Kumaite where he calls he calls.

Speaker 2 (02:43:42):
Dark, which is the regular ones, which are quite light
and lovely, right exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:43:47):
It is a Dark Umaite that's run by Ben Franklin.
So but I mean the character like the person running
the Dark Comedy. It looks exactly Ben Franklin. But anyway,
Dek mc grath, he's the warden and he calls Daniel
Byrne heard a shit fuck cop killer. And so my
friends and I whenever we'd watch a movie and someone
would say shit, we would just you know, immediately say
fuck cop killer after it, because that, you know, because

(02:44:09):
we were huge fans of the Dark kuma Da and.

Speaker 2 (02:44:12):
Forby Yeah, a great fan of the Dark Kumite and
then of course, rounding out these character actor behemos, we've
got David Kagan, who I know from Friday the Thirteenth
Part six, Jason Lives but who is of course also
in a bunch of TV shows, twenty one Jump Street,
he was in Freddy's Nightmares, Matt Locke, Buddy Chemistry he's in,

(02:44:38):
and a bunch of others. But yes, I know him
from Friday the Thirteenth Part six, where he plays the
police chief.

Speaker 4 (02:44:45):
Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing how many people they get in
this movie. And of course, like you know, just within
sort of the background stuff, you've got Art Camacho doing
the fight choreography. So at the end of the movie,
when two holograms fight, that's him choreographing that.

Speaker 3 (02:45:00):
That's why the choreography is not very good.

Speaker 2 (02:45:05):
I mean, I know a Camancho has been on like
a bunch of these movies, but like he's not uh
you know.

Speaker 4 (02:45:12):
Well, you know he's he definitely does not again when
it comes to like right, right, he doesn't. Right. And
then then the the stunt coordinator coordinator is Colin s
McKay or Cole s McKay, Sorry, he's he's actually Colin
McKay in, uh, Out for a Kill or no, is
that the movie? No, it's it's the one that it's

(02:45:35):
this direct video slick all movie. So yeah, no, it's
Out for a Kill because it's a combination of Out
for Justice and Hard to Kill. But Colus McKay does
that stunt core every But you know, when you think
of like the the stunt coordinators of PM, obviously Spiro
Rosado's you know, working with guys like Chad Stahelski and
Darren Prescott there that's kind of your your your your

(02:45:55):
you know, the one most not you know people most
know for but.

Speaker 2 (02:45:58):
You've got Craig Baxley's son is on the stunt team.
So Craig Goar Baxley as a stuntman turned film director
and TV director who directed lots of episodes of The
A Team, and his son works on stunts on this picture.

Speaker 4 (02:46:10):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, and yeah, Cole s McKay, I would say,
is probably like right right after, you know, like he
kind of starts before Risotto starts with them, but then
like yeah, as the as the time goes on it
there's one other name to Joe Murphy that he's referred
to as like Broadway, Joe Murphy. He does some great
stunts for some of some of the movies. Simon Ree,
Simon Yes, Simon Ree is on this one. Yes, on

(02:46:31):
this one. You've got, like you said, you got Craig
ar and Simon Ree working here on this one. And
also Kamancho does some of the stunts as well. But yeah,
I mean Coles McKay, he is the flamethrower guy in
Evan Lourie's band, So he's the one who sets Evan
sets Joe Laura on fire. So that's him. So he's

(02:46:52):
the stunt coordinator, but he you know, he has that
one part there as well. So but yeah, I mean
when you think of like kind of the best PM stuff,
those are probably your three sort of action director stunt
coordinator names that Spirozato's, Cols McKay, Broadway, Joe Murphy. Yeah,
and so yeah, so this is definitely you know, Colus McKay,
I mean, it definitely has everything you want from you know.

(02:47:12):
I guess there is a little difference between a Risotto's
and some of the others because like Risotto's does like
these these takes, these chances kind of on a different
level than any other guys do.

Speaker 2 (02:47:24):
He sort of so once he comes into the PM
entertainment fold, he does more what I would call sort
of lengthy set pieces. So this this movie followed, there's
sort of two types of PM entament move and we're
talking about the stunts of the action. There is sort
of the something like what I kind of think of

(02:47:45):
is like the Land of the Free Rage type, which
is sort of woven in an almost ongoing, moving forward,
dramatic kind of stunt set pieces where they go, Okay,
this is a bus chase set piece, and that's gonna
now play for like fifteen minutes, and we're going to

(02:48:06):
do a ton of gags within this one piece. And
then there's the every seven minute mentality, which comes from
Roger Gorman, which is every seven minutes something has to happen. Now.

Speaker 3 (02:48:18):
Hologram Man is more that.

Speaker 2 (02:48:20):
Yes, there is a very stunt heavy set piece at
the beginning, in fact, kind of two back to back.
There's what you would call it the pre credit sequence,
and then there's the bus chase that you mentioned, which
I feel like a more of those kind of set pieces,
But once it kind of settles into itself, it's really
just gun shootouts at the big monolithic corporation building.

Speaker 4 (02:48:45):
Yeah exactly. And the other thing too that Risottos seemed
always like to do is kind of push the boundaries
of what a flaming stunt person can do. Right in this,
it's just the person's on fire and that's it.

Speaker 2 (02:48:57):
Where although we have to say, the scene where they
set Evan Laurie on fire as his hologrammatic bad guy
character I thought was done very well, ying.

Speaker 4 (02:49:11):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, but you don't see like for example,
in Riot where you've got a flaming sun guy riding
a dirt bike, or you know the Sweeper where you've
got a flaming person falling out of a building, landing
in a van and then exploding. Right, yeah, yeah, it's
but but you know it's it's funny because again, yeah,
even though it's not Spiro's out of sort of next

(02:49:32):
level stuff, there's just so much happening. Like you said
that the seven minute rule, Like they definitely make sure
that they fit that seven minute rule. I mean, this
plot is ridiculous because essentially what happens is that Evan
Lourie's hologram is allowed to escape where it's being held
and then there's sort of this protoplasm that they put

(02:49:53):
on him so that he doesn't look like an obnoxious
hologram thing the whole movie, but actually looks like a
human and then eventually.

Speaker 3 (02:50:01):
Ionized rubber or some bollock.

Speaker 4 (02:50:03):
Right exactly, Yeah, it's a protoplasm that holds in his
his you know, his stuff. And then at the same
time Laurie. So Joe Laura ends up getting killed by
Evan Laurie and his girlfriend makes him into the same thing,
only he's not as strong. He has to use his
wits if he's going to beat.

Speaker 2 (02:50:20):
Yeah, because they've established that Evan Lurie is unkillable by
modern corporeal things. So he can't kung fu fight him
to death. You can't blow him up, he gone shoot him.
He can't do anything. His only option is to also
become a hologram man. But it's okay because Joe Laura

(02:50:41):
is so bad at his job and fails so frequently
that the bad guy Evan Lurie, flat out killing him
does not come as a surprise because and look, I
loved this for all the PM entertainment, noess of it,
but there were definitely things in it that annoyed me.
The whole idea where he's like, well, we've got to

(02:51:02):
go and get my real body. Why if you had
a real body and you put your personality back in
your real body, you would suddenly be killable and therefore
defeat the entire point. You don't need your real body.
But it's just an excuse for them to go back
into the big, you know, skyscraper that PM's rented and
blows some stuff up again, which is you know, which

(02:51:22):
is one thing. Then you've got the whole thing that
like you've got. You've literally got a scene in this
where Joe Lara goes into virtual reality to do a
gun training thing and is able to He goes, I'm
only going to take twelve bullets, and she's like, but
there's twelve bad guys in there, and he's like, well,
you know, bullets cost too much money or something. But essentially,
this idea that Joe Lara is this sharp shot that

(02:51:45):
you know, can predict every turn and shoot everyone quickly
and never hits a hostage and blah blah blah blah blah.
And yet when faced at the beginning of the film
with Evan Lurie holding the governor at it least an
arm's length, if not a full Like it's not like
he's got the governor in front of him, and it's

(02:52:05):
an impossible shot. Like even I think even me, and
I'm not good at anything, I think even I could
have shot Evan Lurry between the eyes the way that
scene was filmed, and Joe Lara instead lets John Amos
get shot and puts his gun down, leaving Luriy ample

(02:52:26):
time to shoot the governor in the head. And that
kind of stuff annoys me because I'm like, well, he's
either like this badass and they have this incredible adversary.
You know, there's one point where Evan Lurry is sad
because he's got everything that he wants, but he doesn't
have his his combatant anymore, his adversary anymore, and you

(02:52:48):
kind of go, but he wasn't a good adversary, Like
he never did anything, Like he's not competent in anything.
He's like he's we see the one scene where in
VR he's very good at shooting people, but outside of that,
he's not going to shooting people. He's not going at fighting,
he's not going to driving a limousine and trying to
stop a governor from getting assassinated, which all you would

(02:53:09):
have to do if the bad guy was coming you
out coming at you in a bus would be simply
to just like drive the limousine to a building and
get out of the limousine. But no, he doesn't do
that either, and so he's pretty much useless. He ends up.
There's there's a whole bit where like he goes on

(02:53:30):
two raids to try and get him get Evan Lurie,
fails miserably both times. And the guy was in Michael Newry,
who's playing like the now head cheese of the corporation
who wants to like have supreme power over the.

Speaker 3 (02:53:49):
City of la He.

Speaker 2 (02:53:52):
Says to him, you know, if you fuck up one
more time, like that's it for us and you're fired,
and blah blah blah blah blah. So you think in
any other action movie, this would be the point where
he's like, right, I mean to get a team together,
And because he has a really good idea, he suddenly goes, well,
if I can't kill Evan Lurry, I'll kill all the

(02:54:13):
people around him, or at least lock them up or whatever,
Because really you would only need to get William Sanderson.
If you stopped William Sanderson, Evan Lurie would not be
able to get all the you know, technical help and
and and the fact that this guy's those polymers and everything,
like he would be none of the other guys like

(02:54:35):
Flamethrower dude doesn't know science, tiny lister walking around in
his futuristic football gear with his eight on his forehead.
He doesn't know science, like he'd be all you have
to do is kill Sanderson and then you're like fucked right,
But no, so you think that's what he's gonna do.
Put a team together of like you know people and

(02:54:56):
go after Evan Lurry's team, But no, he just does
the same thing again. Effect At one point they phone
him up and he's just lying around in bed. I'm like,
you've got a hologram man out there knocking over banks
and killing people like the tissue paper and you're just
lying around shirt that's in bed, your big coon.

Speaker 4 (02:55:20):
Because yeah, they were trying to paint this idea that
Joe Laura in the beginning of the movie is like
some you know, green rookie. But then after there's like
how much time passes that Evan Laurie is supposed to
be getting reprogrammed that Joe Lara becomes this hardened police officer,
but they don't do a good enough job. I think of,

(02:55:43):
like you said, of executing that that like, first off,
Joel Laura doesn't do the dark, brooding cop thing well,
which he.

Speaker 3 (02:55:51):
Does I'm wearing too much makeup in my beard thing.

Speaker 4 (02:55:54):
Very well exactly. So you have that part there, But that,
like you said, because the story does not fit well
with a ninety minute like you know, action film where
you're doing action sequences every seven minutes. The plot itself.
Probably you really only got like maybe forty five minutes

(02:56:14):
of plot out of this movie, because otherwise it's just
you know, washrints repeat. You know, it's just, oh, try
to defeat LORI fail, come back, you know, do it
all over again, which is what we kind of end
up in as a cycle of washrins repeat until finally
it's just like just mak him a hologram man already,
you know, or right. The other thing too, is that
making him a hologram man. To me, I think it's
kind of a cheat in the film. I think the

(02:56:37):
better result is Evan Lourie figures out a way to
defeat him, you know, he you know, he and his
girlfriend come up with a solution of like either electrocuting
or something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:56:47):
Could they have just.

Speaker 3 (02:56:48):
Done what he does anyway?

Speaker 4 (02:56:50):
Right exactly, Like they trap.

Speaker 2 (02:56:52):
Him in the because normally when you're made into a hologram,
you go into this machine, you are sucked into this
little like your hologram essence or whatever is sucked into
this little jar and you're basically put into status stasis. Sorry,
you are basically put into stasis. And then from there,
every so often they reawake you and you've either taken

(02:57:15):
to the brainwashing to make you a better person or
you haven't. And in Evan Lewie's case, he hasn't, and
they're meant to be putting him back in the bottle,
but he breaks free at the end when Joe Lara
has become a hologram man too, they get into the
room that is like the council room where they adjudicate

(02:57:36):
people and where they can trap you back into the
little jar, and all he does is trap him back
into the Like the fight that he has with him
is hopeless, like he's never going to beat him fight wise,
So I mean technically, what they should have done the
way this movie should have played out is he should
have got the team together. He should have slowly started
picking off you know, Tiny List and William Sanderson and

(02:58:00):
all those guys, Nicholas Worth. Then he should have put
Evan Lurie in the little John disposed of him, and
then he should have gone after the real criminals, who
are the Corporation. Because the real interesting thing that I
think could have been played better with, but they certainly
lean on it a little, is the idea that Joe

(02:58:22):
Lara is a man between two villains and that him
fighting for the benefit of Michael Murry is no better
than him siding with Evan Luriy, and in fact, Evan
Lury wants to put the world back the way it was.
In fact, Evan Luriy wants to liberate the people. If anything,
in any other movie, Evan Lurie would be the hero.

(02:58:42):
Which is why again, Evan Luriy writing this and producing
this and probably not the best idea they probably should
have gone.

Speaker 3 (02:58:49):
Thanks for bringing this to us, Lurie.

Speaker 2 (02:58:51):
Now let's write it as if you weren't, because really,
Evan Luriy is the hero of this movie.

Speaker 3 (02:58:56):
He wants to save the people.

Speaker 2 (02:58:58):
You know, he wants to get us away from our
corporate oppressors. The only thing that's bad about him is
that he doesn't hold any of his promises and.

Speaker 3 (02:59:06):
He keeps shooting people in the face.

Speaker 2 (02:59:08):
If he stops doing that and just worked towards liberating
the people, he might have had a better success rate.
And just saying meanwhile, Joe Lara is spent entirely too
much time doing makeup and not enough time doing his
Brazilian jiu jitsu because he's fucking useless. But no, there's
all these moments in the plot where you're just like, well,

(02:59:30):
that does Like I said, he doesn't have to become
a hologram man to put him in the little jar,
like he could have just done that by all he
has to do is and also I mean, I guess
he had to be a hologram man to kick him
like he kicks him or zaps in with something that
immobilizes him so long that even Lurie is lying on

(02:59:50):
the ground as a hologram man, who we already know
is impervious to everything. So I don't really understand how
he's like winded or lying on the ground. But he's
lying on the ground in the sube that's going to
turn him back into a hologram, turn him back into
a little jar guy. And instead of I don't know,
finding a little bit of hologrammatic energy just to crawl
out of the way of the laser that's going to

(03:00:12):
atomize you, he just lies there for ten minutes going no, no,
don't no, don't do that. No, please, don't do that.
It keeps coming back to him for like thirty minutes
of him lying. Now I'm like, I don't how is
a hologram man winded? Like does how does his hologram
technology even work? And I'm just I'm like, wait, he
could be winded and lie there and not be able

(03:00:33):
to do anything about the fate that he's about to
be sucked into a thing Like he couldn't just I
don't know, slide his body out of the canister, like
what's going on?

Speaker 3 (03:00:44):
And it doesn't take smarts to do what Joe Lara does.

Speaker 2 (03:00:49):
So this whole thing about, well, you're more powerful than me,
so I need to use my smarts. You've not shown
any smarts throughout the entire movie. So me suddenly hanging
my hat on the idea that Joe Lara's got some
trick up.

Speaker 3 (03:01:00):
His sleeve is fucking ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (03:01:03):
Well, because the idea is it, like I guess he
somehow is able to throw the fireball because he sticks
his hand in a computer. Yes, and then and then
he can type on a computer. And that's what it.

Speaker 2 (03:01:14):
Like you said at one point Evan Louriy can reach
out of a TV set and strangler. Dude, that's apparently
saying a hologram man can do.

Speaker 4 (03:01:21):
Right, Yeah, yeah, again, that's the other piece with this
is it? You know? And again I guess it's one
of those things where it's like a PM thing where
they're just like, yeah, whatever, it's convenient for the plot
to get us more explosions, let's let it happen, because yeah,
the continuity piece, they're just like, it just seems like
this whole hologram thing they didn't really think it through.

Speaker 2 (03:01:39):
Well, they have money to do the effect for like
ten minutes, so the rest of the time he has
to wear this all body skin, which you sort of
buy with Evan Lewie because you're like, well, okay, he's
got the scientist Sandersen guy working with him. They dumped
him into a big vat and it made him a
rubber body. All right, I guess I'll buy that. But

(03:02:00):
then when you get to Joe Lara, his girlfriend just goes, Wow,
don't worry, We'll put a bit of blush on your face.
We'll put a bit of foundation, yeah, like the Jara foundation.
And suddenly he's She's able to make realistic arm hair
and fucking eyeballs. At one point, you see he just airbrushes. Yeah,
just wipe a single airbrush across his eye and suddenly

(03:02:21):
a perfectly formed eye.

Speaker 3 (03:02:23):
Baffling.

Speaker 2 (03:02:24):
But she must be the banksy of her generation. I guess,
an artist extraordinair. No, there's a lot of goofy shit
like that, but also there's a lot of like running, shooting, exploding,
which is a lot of fun. The only thing that
I think it doesn't have a great with some of
the sequences, especially one of the last ones where they

(03:02:44):
do the raid on the warehouse yet again, is.

Speaker 3 (03:02:47):
There's a lot of.

Speaker 2 (03:02:50):
There's not a lot of special awareness, and there's not
a lot of awareness of who the good guy is
versus the bad guy. Because there was a bunch of
times where I'm like, wait, was that a good guy
who was your shot bad guy was just shot and
I sort of went, I don't care.

Speaker 4 (03:03:03):
No, well, because yeah, the spatial awareness thing, I mean,
think about Recoil right where it's like how big is
that warehouse that they're doing the change? So that's another
PM thing, right, is that spatial awareness is like just
allows us to blow up shit wherever we want to.
And you know, I mean it's like the way Evan
Lourie dispatches of Nori at the end where he just
blows up his limo again, like none of that makes

(03:03:24):
any sense, but we got to see a really cool
limo explosion. So okay, I guess I'm okay with it,
you know, And I guess that's that's kind of what
PM does, right is PM's idea is like, you know,
do you want the explosion? You're not, And it's like
we're gonna give it to you this way. You know,
if it makes sense, If you're worried about whether it
makes sense or not, then you don't want the explosion,

(03:03:45):
I guess. Or you know, if the movie can make
sense and you don't get an explosion, or it's not
gonna make any sense, you'rene get an explosion.

Speaker 2 (03:03:50):
Oh and don't get me wrong, like as a PM
Entertainment movie, I and especially as a sci fi PM
entertainment movie, because I feel like, uh, when PM Entertainment
tries to do sci fi action, they've sort of almost
added one too many elements, you know. I mean, you'd
rather the money was going towards more death defying stunts

(03:04:11):
and less I don't know, putting a weird plastic shell
on a car to try and make it look futuristic
or whatever, or building a big sign for like, you know,
amer Corp or whatever the fucking coorporated cal Corp or
whatever it's called this thing, instead of doing any of that,
like just said it in regular times and don't make

(03:04:32):
him a hologram, and we're fine with it, you know, right,
But sometimes they're like, well, you know, lawnmower man's doing something,
so maybe we should make hologram man or whatever. You know.

Speaker 4 (03:04:41):
Well that's part of it, right, That's another piece of
it is that they just were always kind of making
whenever else was being made at the time. So there's
that piece of it, you know. I mean again, you know,
going back to Spiros Adams with the sweeper, you know,
in the sweeper, you can see all the places that
they cut corners so that they can let spuro Rosados
do more action. I mean, it's like, know, there's no
police chief in the sweeper. It's just see Thomas Howl

(03:05:04):
laying on a bed without a shirt on, in his
jeans in the middle of the night and his answering
machine going off with an angry police chief telling him
suspended or whatever. They're We're not going to use a
set of a police station. We're not going to do
any of that kind of stuff. We're just gonna give
it to spirou Resuttes and let him, you know, throw
some more flaming stuntman out of buildings and you know
they have cars, you know, uh, you know, shooting oxygen

(03:05:25):
tanks out of the back of you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (03:05:28):
It was a sequence with the flaming barrels being pushed
off the back of the truck.

Speaker 4 (03:05:33):
Right There's because you know, it's one of the things I
realized when I did Riot on a recent episode with
Todd Leibna from Forgotten Film Casts, and he's kind of
new to the direct video stuff, so I thought that
would be a fun one because you know Christmas theme
and all of that. But as we're going over this stuff,
I was realizing that there's just not a lot of
information on these PM movies. And so you're you're watching, like,

(03:05:55):
for example, this Hologram Man one, you know, so many
things that were watching in it. We're like, well, why
did they make that decision or what prompted them to
do go in this direction here? And you know, if
you look at like a you know, for example, like
a Beverly Hills cop movie, right, there's tons of trivia,
so we know, like, okay, here's why Part three had
its issues. You know, here are the things that happened

(03:06:15):
these PM flecks. You don't really get any of that.
Look at some of the trivia that's in here, because
there is actually some trivia in for this movie. And
one of them. I don't know if it's true or not,
or if this is a joke, but apparently Evan Laurie
was on so much anabolic steroids that he was prone
to quote roid rage, and some shots of him under

(03:06:37):
that roid rage were left in the movie due to
budget constraints that prevented them from being re shot. So
essentially they're saying that his acting when he was like
really emoting and screaming and stuff like that. They're saying
that was roid rage. I don't, I mean, I guess,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:06:50):
But apparently also the future cops are wearing uniforms from V.
Was there one of these guys in V that I
think so? Yeah, Nicholas Worth, the.

Speaker 4 (03:07:03):
Guy from the guy from Animal House, right, Yes, Charles,
it was Charles Naughton. Is that James Darton, j.

Speaker 3 (03:07:10):
James He was in the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:07:13):
Evan Laurie and director which you've ember worked on four
films together. And Nicholas Worth made two guest appearances in
the series Tarzan the Epic Adventures. The main actor in
the series was Joe Lara. And it is funny isn't
Joe Lara in that Frank Zagarino movie Armstrong or whatever?

Speaker 4 (03:07:31):
Yes? Yes?

Speaker 3 (03:07:31):
And isn't he called like Ponytail in that?

Speaker 4 (03:07:34):
I think so? Yes.

Speaker 3 (03:07:36):
But there's a lot there was a.

Speaker 2 (03:07:37):
Lot of those action men with long hair in the
eighties early nineties. Yea, whether it was the guy from
Samurai carp or whether it's Joe Lara, or whether it's
Lorenzo Lamas and Renegades, or there was a lot of
like who was the guy who was sort of the

(03:07:58):
model from the front of Romance Fabio. That's it, so
sort of a lot of Fabio looking Jesus type fellas
who decided to turn their hand to action.

Speaker 4 (03:08:11):
Yeah. Well, at Matthias used as another one. The long
hair massive you know.

Speaker 2 (03:08:16):
You think that it would be like if I'm fighting you,
I'm going for the hair, you know what I mean, Like,
I'm going to just go for the hair, grab the hair,
and then like I've got you, you know what I mean.
It's like anyone fighting me, it's going to grab the beard.
Like the beard is. It's the thing. It's right there
in front of you. You can't resist grabbing it. So

(03:08:36):
the hair just seems to me like not a practical
application whatsoever, because you know you're doing roundhouse kicks that
hair hit you in the face. You then got to
be like where am I Bullets could be firing? You know,
Don the Dragon Wilson had long hair for appearing in
his career, and it just seemed ridiculous, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 4 (03:08:56):
Gary Daniels or Gary Daniels with the long hair, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:09:00):
Yeah, I don't know what happened there, but it was
it was a thing for a while.

Speaker 4 (03:09:03):
Yeah, they they Then it was like I guess it
was like a hair metal thing or a grunge thing.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:09:08):
Yeah, yeah, I don't see any of these guys being
into either hair metal or rungs. But but yes, so
hologramd Man. I mean, I don't know that I'm putting
it as high up as you in my PM entertainment list.
It's certainly I tell you what though. It certainly does
what I want a PM entertainment movie to do. It

(03:09:30):
gives me all the ridiculous explosions, gunplay, random plot points,
stupid hair, you know, ridiculous line readings. It gives me
everything I want from a PM entertainment movie. I just
think they did it slightly better elsewhere and did it
with a story that didn't Like every so often in

(03:09:50):
this movie, I'm just like, well, just just press the
thing or just do the thing or what like, or
do some detective work, track down where these guys are
and like killed them one by one, like do something, yes,
And we never kind of truly get to see that,
So that there was. It was a frustrating watch, but
it also was a satisfying watch because it had all

(03:10:14):
the action that I wanted from a p entertainment movie.

Speaker 4 (03:10:17):
Yeah, And I will say I do have a special
place in my heart for Evan Laurie. I I guess
I'm an American kickboxer too, and I just have always
gotten a kick out of him and stuff. And so
now granted and guns and lipsick, he has a fanny pack,
and so I always I railed on David Bradley in
a Cyboord Cop for having a fanny pack the entire time.

(03:10:39):
So when I saw that Evan Laurie had want in
guns and lipsic, I was like, gosh, so I can't
you know, I can't, I can't respect you know. I
did this whole joke. I think it was my Last
Man's Standing review where I talked about the what it
would have been like if it's director or somebody on
set had tried to get Jeff Wincott to put on
a fanny pack. And he's just like smoking a cigarette
the whole time and just like looking at the guy

(03:11:00):
like what.

Speaker 2 (03:11:00):
Would have eaten? And then he punched the guy into
next week.

Speaker 4 (03:11:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (03:11:07):
Wayne Coott was so u tense the whole time he
was in any movie. I feel like very angry.

Speaker 4 (03:11:14):
Yeah, and I mean he brought an intensity to those
PM flicks it, you know, like I can see, like,
for example, you can make a good case for why
Last Man's standing above Hologram Man on my top ten list,
you know, or like Rage, you know, you can make
a really good case why I should like Rage better
than this movie. I think that's the thing with PM
flix is that they there's just like, like, at least

(03:11:36):
for me, like there's so many great ones that it's
like I love them all and I love so many
of them, and it's like, yeah, like people can I
can see why everybody likes different things in them for sure?

Speaker 2 (03:11:49):
Yeah, yeah, And I don't think you know, with PM
Entertainment movies, there's enough to go round, and there are
there is no right or wrong, you know what I mean.
They made one hundred and fifty movies in like ten
years or something, and so you know, if if you
didn't like that one, another one comes along in a minute,

(03:12:10):
you know what I mean. Or if you really like
that one, another one will come along in like three minutes.
Like it's it's you know, it's it almost works that
every other PM Entertainment movie is a great movie. Like
It's they don't hit it out of the park every
single time, but every other PM entertainment movie is a
great movie. They have a surprisingly high hit rate. Yeah,

(03:12:33):
they really do in a way that I, you know,
Canon does, but it also doesn't like I love the
Canon aesthetic, but I can't say I love every single
Canon movie. There are some that I really really love.
You know, a couple of Bronze and that I think
are absolutely fantastic, and some of the early slasher films

(03:12:57):
are a lot of fun. And obviously my favorite Canon
movie is Ballero starring Bo Derek. Obviously I'm kidding, no,
I you know my one of my favorite. It's funny
that everyone sort of again in that documentary attacks certain films,
but like I I love and we were talking earlier

(03:13:19):
about like films that are fun and that everyone shits on.
I love Master the Universe. I loved Master Universe growing up,
and I love Master the Universe now. I love How
the Duck. I loved Howard the Duck growing up, and
I love How the Duck now.

Speaker 3 (03:13:32):
I love the.

Speaker 2 (03:13:33):
Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I loved it when I was
growing up, I love it now. Like all these movies
were like shit on relentlessly. I haven't seen it in
a long time, but I bet I would enjoy Cutthroat Island,
which is another one of those that is always called
like one of the worst movies ever, and very often
when people say, like Madame Webb, I haven't watched it,

(03:13:53):
but I bet it's just boring.

Speaker 3 (03:13:54):
I bet it's not a bad movie. I bet it's
just a bit boring.

Speaker 4 (03:13:57):
It's it's done even close, it's it's it's it's an
retaining in spots. I had fun with it. I enjoyed anyone.

Speaker 2 (03:14:03):
But it's the worst movie ever. And you watch it
and you go, no, it's not the only one where
someone was completely right about it. And to the point
where I was completely baffled is that I can usually
tolerate and or fully enjoy Adam Sandler movies like I'm
not anti Sandler. I'm pretty much on the Sandler train.

(03:14:25):
I think that if you want a big dumb comedy,
no one else is really making them, and I quite
like big dumb comedy. Sometimes everyone said Jack and Jill
is his worst fucking movie. Never watched Jack and Jill.
It's his worst fucking movie. Well before the New Year,
I watched Jack and Jill, and they're right. Jack and
Jill doesn't have a fucking laugh in it. I don't

(03:14:47):
know what anyone thought they were doing. I don't that
director Frederick Forrest or whatever has done other Sandla movies
that are fine. They're the writing team that wrote on
that have done other Sandla movies that are fine. Whether
it was his pair up with Nicholson or his pair
up with who else? Does he He's paired up with

(03:15:10):
a couple of other big actors, hasn't he? Has he
been a de Niro movie? No, No, de Niro is
kay telling one of his movies.

Speaker 4 (03:15:19):
Maybe I'm trying to think of what other, but like
A management with Nicholson is one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 (03:15:26):
I think Nicholson in that movie is fucking amazing. Paccino
in Jack and Jail, like, it's baffling to me how
unfunny it is, honestly, considering he's his hit ratio is
kind of one in every four movies is a really
great comedy, and one in every three movies is like
a perfectly watchable dumb movie, and then like you know,

(03:15:49):
one or two of them are fairly average.

Speaker 3 (03:15:51):
This was so bad.

Speaker 2 (03:15:53):
It's the only time that I've agreed wholeheartedly with everyone
else is on Jack and Jill some random fucking Adams.

Speaker 4 (03:16:00):
Yeah. I think the one for me was Jersey Girl,
like because even Kevin Smith I saw in an interview
he did with GQ, he was like, we thought we
were making a movie and it just didn't work out.
And I watched it. I was like, yeah, it just
didn't work out Smith.

Speaker 2 (03:16:18):
Yeah, I like Kevin Smith Josie Girl, but that's me, you.

Speaker 4 (03:16:21):
Like, Yeah, I watched it. I was like, I totally
get why he thought it didn't work Like, I get,
you know, but yeah, that was the one for me.
I guess that was mine where I was like, okay.

Speaker 2 (03:16:33):
Yeah, but also at the same time, like that's one
that I think people are too hot on and and
and shit all over. But whatever, it's fine. Uh you know,
it's it's not Oh, James Kahn he worked with and
that's my boy, that's right. I think he's working with
who's like one of those classic like seventies actors.

Speaker 4 (03:16:59):
I love Darren McGan it in Billy Madison.

Speaker 3 (03:17:01):
Yeah, I mean he's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (03:17:03):
Yeah, he's had Dan Akroyd in a few of his movies,
I don't know, I I he had, but Reynolds I
think in one of his movies.

Speaker 3 (03:17:14):
I have no problem with Adam.

Speaker 4 (03:17:16):
Adams, Carl Weathers. Carl Weathers was in a happy Gilmour
Yes to Lake Carl Weathers.

Speaker 2 (03:17:21):
Yeah, so yeah, I have no problem with him.

Speaker 3 (03:17:25):
But yeah, Jack and Joel is.

Speaker 2 (03:17:28):
Fucking awful without a joking, but no, in general, movies
are fun. Hologround man is. I'm not going to say
it's top tier PM, but it's certainly not bottom. It's
sort of a good three and a half out of five.
As my writing for it.

Speaker 4 (03:17:41):
Yeah, it again, I probably have a little higher because
I have my fourth that my my top so I
have on my letterbox. I've got my top ten PM.
I'm thinking of extending it to top twenty. But is
there so many movies that I just even as just
as talking, I was like, oh I forgot about that
one or that you know.

Speaker 3 (03:17:59):
Yeah, now I need to go through and really make
my top ten.

Speaker 4 (03:18:01):
I think now in terms of like where people can
find this beyond VHS it there's a good YouTube version,
and so I have a I think you you and
I both actually may have playlists on YouTube on our
YouTube channels for PM. Yeah, so you can check that,
you know, they're they're they're in there. It's it's it's
it works. I think, you know, I guess because it's

(03:18:22):
in the nineties and maybe that nineties period they were
better than the eighties ones for for YouTube versions.

Speaker 2 (03:18:29):
Yes, and I even have a uh and I don't
know how accurate this is anymore, but I even have
a fulls PM entertainment spreadsheet.

Speaker 4 (03:18:40):
Oh that's right, you mentioned that.

Speaker 2 (03:18:41):
Yeah, that list the movies that I own on VHS
and the movies that I own on DVD because a
lot of them because Echo Bridge and Mill Creek owned
a lot of PM entertainment movies for a while. And
you'll get it's like an Echo Bridge and on the
front it says like Steven Sagal twenty five action movies,

(03:19:03):
and what it means is he's in one of them,
and the rest are just random action movies, like for example,
Deadly Breed is apparently on which is their only their
fourth movie is apparently on the Steven Sagall twenty five
Action Movies DVD that I own, and it's also on YouTube,

(03:19:25):
Like I have whether they're streaming as well. So I
have an exhaustive PM entertainment list of what I own
and where stuff is streaming, and predominantly they're mostly streaming
on YouTube, but you will find some on free v
or Amazon Prime.

Speaker 4 (03:19:42):
Yeah, this one's also on a service called Fossom, which
is like a two B style. Yeah. So yeah, see
you can't find And I mean the thing is I
think because Pepin and mayor Hey, they kind of just
let the thing go in the early two thousands. I
think I think Inferno that we talked about on my podcast,
that Van Dam movie, I think that might have been

(03:20:05):
one of the last PM films and that actually didn't
have Pepin. Pepin had left PM at that point when.

Speaker 2 (03:20:12):
Yeah, when they go well, I mean I go into
the I go into the slightly post because there was
the pre PM City Lights that had three producers, one
of whom left, and then it became PM, and then.

Speaker 3 (03:20:26):
After Peppin and Mary left.

Speaker 2 (03:20:30):
It went to another company I forget what it is,
and they made movies through till two thousand and six.
But so you've got stuff like post Inferno, you still
have like avalanche Y tou qu water Damage, Hot Boys
of course, that Jeff Speakman is in Epicenter, which is

(03:20:53):
sort of the last Gary Daniels Tracy Lawd's Jeffirey kind
of movie that they do. Final film produced by Richard
and Joseph Mary is Epicenter. Then after that you just
have some real randoms like Jailbait, High Noon, Little Heroes Too,
Backyard Dogs, Camouflage, fire Trap with Dean Kine and Laurie Petty,

(03:21:13):
Layover with David Hasselhoff, Can Express with Arnold Voslow, Tunnel
with Daniel Baldwin, and Crash Landing with Michael Perrey. And
then the very last movie that is considered PM adjacent
is Push in two thousand and six starring Jason Jennings.

Speaker 4 (03:21:33):
That's right, yeah, yeah, And I think like like that
that Dean Kine one. It's like they distributed it but
they didn't produce it or something. It's weird.

Speaker 2 (03:21:41):
It's like, yeah, it's one of it's like there's a
scraggler of a few. But yeah, but no, I have
the only post post Pepin movie that I own two
of them. I own Camouflage with Leslie Nielsen, and I
own Crash Landing with Michael Parrey.

Speaker 4 (03:21:59):
Yeah, yeah, I haven't gotten into as much of those
later ones. I probably should. I mean, I have so
many to catch up on, even from like that nineties
period that I have on, Like I'm on different YouTube
lists or you know.

Speaker 2 (03:22:11):
Oh I own a buns that I haven't even watched, Dude,
Like I haven't listed here like which ones I own
versus which ones I've watched that.

Speaker 3 (03:22:19):
Yeah, I still have so many.

Speaker 2 (03:22:21):
I mean, every time I go down to the archive,
they have all these vhs out and all I'm doing
is looking on the spines for the PM Entertainment logo,
because although there are a few out there that were
released on vhs, there are PM Entertainment movies that don't
have the logo on the side. Ninety percent of them do.

(03:22:43):
So what's weird is they've had forever the Jack Scaralia
Romantic Comedy, PM Entertainment amore, they've had that on vhs.
I just can't bring myself to spend the money on it,
but I probably should if I'm going to be a
complete just I think owned the Bikini Summer too, So

(03:23:04):
if I owned Bikini Summer too, I should probably own
them all right.

Speaker 4 (03:23:07):
Well, that's like when I was reviewing all of The
Don the Dragon Wilson movies, which I've I've now of
course fawned behind sees he's made some new ones. But
I didn't review Hollywood Safari. It's just you know, and
that's a PM flick as well, So it's like a
combination of PM. I think even Urt Camacho had something
to do with that one, because probably something.

Speaker 2 (03:23:26):
Yeah, they made some random ones. They made some random ones, definitely.
I remember I was reading an article earlier that was
talking about, like, well, the early ones like Repo Jake.
But I'm like, Repo Jake isn't like an early one.
It's sort of when he actually it's when they start
to kind of ramp up a little bit exactly. It's

(03:23:46):
after they sort of drop the ongoing Chance films, all
of which don't get hugely great reviews. I mean, I've
got a couple I want to see. I own la
He and uh, I think l A Vice I have
as well. But I so I could watch a couple

(03:24:08):
of those. But really, for me, PM ramps up when
they start working with Wings obviously, and then once you
get into The Don the Dragon Wilson, Tracy Lord's, Lorenzo Lamas,
Jeff Wing, cat Era that's done the Dragon Wilson. That's
when PM becomes PM, you know.

Speaker 4 (03:24:29):
Yeah, and you know that early period. I mean you
got Shotgun in eighty nine, which is just absurd. It's
just like this is you know, and I believe that
one was on the Roku channel had it or something
like that. But it's like you watch that and you're
just like, what is going and it doesn't really have
anybody in it. I think Paul Otaka is in it,
you know, but yeah, you get a lot of you know, uh,

(03:24:51):
William Smith in some of those early ones, and it's
just like and there's just really there's not much better
than just the William Smith like behind a desk with
a grond voiced yelling at somebody, right, you know. Yeah, yeah,
it's yeah, there's a few like like East La Warriors.
I still haven't seen that one, and that one is
available on I think it's on two B and I

(03:25:12):
just I need to do it. I just need to
watch more of those.

Speaker 2 (03:25:15):
So yeah, so what is this foursome then? Is there
is there a downloadable app for it or is it just.

Speaker 4 (03:25:23):
I think it's just streaming on digital? I think so
I used it to Yeah, I don't know if they
have an app. That's a good question.

Speaker 3 (03:25:29):
They have Midnight Warrior. They have a ton of.

Speaker 4 (03:25:31):
These, right exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:25:33):
Yeah, from the early days. I was just looking up
to see like, oh what can I watch, and and
like a lot of them are on this foursome thing.

Speaker 4 (03:25:42):
I think, yeah, that's a good Yeah. Let me see
if I look up, it.

Speaker 2 (03:25:47):
Looks like they got film Rise, the film Rise catalog
and film Rise used to have a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 4 (03:25:52):
Right exactly. No, does look like they have an app. Yeah,
they have a fossome app. So it's a it's essentially
awesome with the word f but the.

Speaker 2 (03:25:59):
Web gon on it. This might have this might be
like a new thing to find lots of PM entertainment
movies on.

Speaker 4 (03:26:07):
Right. Yeah, that's a good point. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah,
they've got an appier so you put on your table,
on your phone or whatever. Yeah, it's you know, is
it free? It's free. Yes, it's like two B. It
works like two B. So it's got commercials in it, dude.

Speaker 2 (03:26:20):
It has Angels of the City, it has like older
PM entertainment movies.

Speaker 4 (03:26:25):
Yeah, all right, I guess the fuck.

Speaker 3 (03:26:27):
Well that I mean, that's it for twenty twenty five.
That's what that's what I'm watching.

Speaker 4 (03:26:34):
Yeah, yeah, Agel of the City, that's what I've been
I don't know if I've got that one on them.
That might be on two B as well, but.

Speaker 2 (03:26:40):
Maybe not anymore on Holograd Mountain Dude.

Speaker 4 (03:26:42):
I just I think, especially now that it's on fossil
or YouTube, I think you're looking for a fun action
or it's a little long. It about one hundred million minutes,
so it's a little longer than you usually PM.

Speaker 2 (03:26:50):
But it's why I started the podcast lake because I
was like, oh, wait, ten more minutes to go.

Speaker 3 (03:26:55):
I thought they were wrapping it up.

Speaker 2 (03:26:56):
Yeah, probably eighty minutes and done with exactly.

Speaker 4 (03:27:00):
Yeah. So it's a little long for PM, but the
action quotion is solid and uh yeah, it's it's you
got to you know, like you said, there's a lot
of plot holes, but also a lot of explosions and
a lot of shootouts and stuff like that too.

Speaker 2 (03:27:13):
Yeah. Great, and anything else about what's going on with
you direct to video Connoisseur, your latest novel, all that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (03:27:22):
Yeah. So my newest book, let's see if I can
reach it here. Yeah, my newest book is Nadia and Aiden. Okay,
so I think I've got my blur on here. Oh
you've got a copy as well. You've got it as well.
That's right, you bought it as well. Yes, So this
is my newest, my newest one. It's a novella. It's
about one hundred and seventy pages or whatever, but I
use slightly bigger fond as well. But uh, yeah. It

(03:27:45):
follows two fraternal twins who grew up in France with
their mother's Americans, so they come to the United States too.
I get in touch with their American heritage. And it's
told in a like a unique sort of dual first
person narration style.

Speaker 2 (03:27:57):
Yeah, and Nadia is a didn't spelled backwards exactly.

Speaker 4 (03:28:01):
Yeah. So their names, you know the Yeah, so the
character that's their father, he's his character named Mads. So
I used to write these free rights on MySpace, these
sort of like flash fiction free rates about this dandy
sort of confirmed bachelor character in Boston and his Norwegian companion, Mads.
And so their their father is Mads. So yeah, so

(03:28:25):
they kind of show up in the book as well.

Speaker 3 (03:28:27):
But that's available on Amazon.

Speaker 2 (03:28:28):
The link to that will be in the usual podcast
notes and on the website. I think I normally just
linked to your author page on Amazon and people, yeah,
that works whatever book they want to buy, rather than
doing all the individual links. But yes, definitely pick up
Matt's books. Anything else going over with the say any
series you're doing on the show or anything we should

(03:28:51):
know about.

Speaker 4 (03:28:51):
The podcast is every every Tuesday night Eastern time. Yeah,
nothing nothing too crazy, you know, just sort of the
usual kind of just go through the usual direct to
video stuff. So yeah, you can always tune in. Definitely.
Probably the best thing is subscribe. Subscribe on on iTunes
or one whatever podcast because sometimes with those DTVC extra ones,

(03:29:12):
the solo ones I do myself. I don't advertise them.
I just sort of post them so you won't know
on social media or something like that, I know, but
the main podcast always posting, you know, social media links all.

Speaker 2 (03:29:24):
Just subscribe to your podcast and I put on I
think the link that I linked to from the description
goes to one of those pod aggregators that will allow
people to download you from whatever they use.

Speaker 4 (03:29:37):
Oh, that's not what it is.

Speaker 2 (03:29:39):
It is what is.

Speaker 4 (03:29:42):
The I'll to look into that because I yeah, on
my website ATV kind of sort pd link.

Speaker 2 (03:29:47):
It's cool podlink and if you if you go to podlink,
it's if you go to podlink, if your podcast is
on Amazon or on Spotify or any of those, podlink
will also find all the other platforms it's on because
it basically follows the RSS feed that is aggregated out.
So for example, when you go to the aftermovie Dina one,

(03:30:08):
yes you can see that it's on. It's on Apple
and Spotify, but it's also got all these other ones
well you can listen to. So it gives you all
the apps that you can listen to iHeartRadio and Spotify
and ones that I don't even know that I'm on.
It has podcast Addict.

Speaker 3 (03:30:29):
I don't know what that is. It has overcast FM.

Speaker 4 (03:30:32):
Apparently I'm on that overcast I know I'm on that one.

Speaker 2 (03:30:36):
Pc A, I don't know what that is. Cast Box FM. Yeah,
so podcast Republic I'm apparently on there. I'm on all
these things I had no idea, and and it'll link
you out to like the RSS feed and everything like that.
So I love using pod link because it means that

(03:30:58):
no matter whether you're using Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, whatever,
you're using, you'll be able to find us.

Speaker 4 (03:31:08):
Excellent. Yeah, that's a good idea. I never thought it.
I've got kind of all the individual links on my
site on dtbcnsor dot blogspot, dot com.

Speaker 2 (03:31:16):
But yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (03:31:17):
Always say just look us up in your favorite podcaster.
But that's a good I didn't think of that that
the aggregator lets you kind of choose which one you want,
because people have come to me and said like, oh,
I didn't know your podcast was on Amazon because I
listened to a lot of audiobooks in there. I could
be listening on there. It's like, yeah, I didn't think
to tell you, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:31:33):
I mean I don't know where it is.

Speaker 2 (03:31:34):
I just put the Aftermovie Diner out there and speaker
does the rest. So yeah, I have no idea where
I am. But yes, all the links will be in
the episode description. As always, Matt, this was a real pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining us yet again on
another Aftermovie Diner episode where we look at one movie
starring people who I really would like to watch more

(03:31:55):
of and a VHS special and you will probably be
able to hear me next talking another PM entertainment flick
t Force, which I have somewhere here starring the aforementioned
Jack Scalia. Okay, it's so beautiful on phs. Look you
can even see the actress's nipples. Look, yes, in the

(03:32:17):
in the shirt on the back there. Look, look you
can see the nipples through the shirt on the back
of the VHS, which knows that it makes you know
that it's a good one. So yeah, we'll be doing
more PM entertainment next time on TTVC.

Speaker 4 (03:32:30):
Yes, definitely. Yeah, I'm excited, always excited to talk more
more PM for sure. Yeah yeah, yes, all

Speaker 2 (03:32:38):
Right man, Well look this has been another another long, wonderful,
beautiful episode and I'll hopefully have it out by may
or June.

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Season 2 - Ep 20 - Tough Guys Don't Dance and Hologram Man

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Season 2 - Ep 20 - Tough Guys Don't Dance and Hologram Man